) 197 
377b 



,pyl lie Hard Times. 

Agricultural Development 



THE 



True Remedy. 



FRANKLIN W. SMITH. 



FOUR PAPERS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE "BOSTON DAILY ADVERTISER.' 



/ 



1. "Hard Times;" not transitory. War profits; their 

consequences. the panic ; its causes and results. 
Necessity for diversion of labor to tillage of the 

EARTH. 

2. The Public Lands, a heritage of riches. Wealth of 

France from agriculture. Payment of the German 
Indemnity. Superlative advantages of Americans 
lying waste. 

3. Freedom of the public lands. Security of capital 

loaned to settlers. increase of agricultural 
exports, — of fruit culture. land settlement "the 
best Affair of Business." 

4. American migration. Successful colonizations of 

Anaheim, Cal. ; Yineland, N. J.; Greeley, Col 
Inducements for capital in agriculture. Chances 
of success in trade. boards of ald to land 
Ownership. 



BOSTON: 

JAMES R. OSGOOD & COMPANY, 

Late Tioknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood & Co. 

1877. 



* 



DEVELOPMENT OF AN AMERICAN STATE 




First Territorial Capitol at Pawnee. First Legislature met in this building 

July 2, 1855. 




Constitution Hall, Topeka. The Free State Convention met in this building 
to frame Constitution. Ootohpr. isss 



Constitution, October, 1855. 




State Capitol, Topeka. Win- first occupied, December, 1869. 



BY AGRICULTURE IN TWENTY-TWO YEARS. 



AREA OF IMPROVED LAND. 

I860. — 405,468 acres. 




1875.— 4,748,901 acres. 



1875. —528,437- inhabitants. 



WHEAT AND CORN CROPS. 



1 1860. — 194,173 bushels of wheat. 
1860. — 6,150,727 bushels of corn. 




1875. 



80,798,769 bushels of corn. 



The Hard Times. 

Agricultural Development 



THE 



True Remedy. 



BY 

FRANKLIN W. SMITH. 



FOTTB PAPEB8 OEIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE "BOSTON DALLY ADVEBTISEB." 



1. "Hard Times;" not transitory. War profits; their 

consequences. the panic; its causes and results. 
Necessity for diversion of labor to tillage of the 

EARTH. 

2. The Public Lands, a heritage of riches. Wealth of 

France from agriculture. Payment of the German 
Indemnity. Superlative advantages of Americans 
lying waste. 

3. Freedom of the public lands. Security of capital 

loaned to settlers. increase of agricultural 
exports, — of fruit culture. land settlement "the 
best Affair of Business. " 

4. American migration. Successful colonizations of 

Anaheim, Cal. ; Vineland, N. J. ; Greeley, Col. 
Inducements for capital in agriculture. Chances 
of success in trade. Boards of Aid to Land 
Ownership. 



BOSTON: 

JAMES R. OSGOOD '& COMPANY, 

Late Ticknob & Fields, and Fields, Osgood & Co. 

1877. 



f 




\V11 v 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1877, by 

FBANKJL1N W. SMITH, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Lc Control Number 




tm P 96 028336 




PREFATORY. 

The writer of the following papers has personally never 
had any interest, direct or indirect, in lands of any State, or in 
stock or bonds of any Railroad or Land Company, that could 
be affected in the least by enterprises such as are herein pro- 
posed — excepting the ownership of a few U. P. R. R. bonds, 
sold ten years ago. 

The topics herein discussed are by no means of late inter- 
est to him. Twenty-one years since, he wrote as follows : — 

[Correspondence of the "Boston Daily Journal."] 

Columbus, 0., Dec. 13, 1856. 

"Thus this railroad enterprise (the Illinois Central) has 
made marketable to both government and the company, a 
wide territory ; while land ownership, the greatest boon to 
the poor, is offered to the poorest." &c., &c. 

Again, in 1876, the subject was agitated in the "Rich- 
mond Enquirer " : — 

[Correspondence of the "Enquirer."] 

Boston, Jan. 27, 1876. 
" I have recently been so much oppressed by sympathy 
for young men out of employment, that a thought in their 
behalf suggests this communication. The inquiry presses, 
What is to become of them? 

In primal California days, companies of such young men 
aggregated their capital, loaded ships, and sailed for San 
Francisco ; many of them becoming successful and hon- 
ored citizens. The mayor of San Francisco, recently de- 
ceased in honor and competence, was' a schoolmate of the 
writer, in Boston, thirty years ago," &c. 



4 PREFATORY. 

The suggestion made was for holders of large tracts in 
Virginia to unite in such a tender of lands, as might 
induce organized immigration from New England. 

The following papers were placed in the Daily Adver- 
tiser, first, to obtain the judgment of discreet parties upon 
the views therein; and second, their opinion of the prac- 
ticability of measures proposed. In regard to the former, 
he is gratified to find a general conviction in the com- 
munity, that as the prosperity of the country depends upon 
an average degree of individual well-being of the people 
who govern it, the present tendency to pauperism places 
that great issue in danger; and as to the latter, he has 
heard no dissent from the measures suggested toward 
relief. 

F. W. S. 

Boston, Nov. 1, 1877. 



THE HARD TIMES. 



No. I 



" Hard Times ; " not transitory. War Profits ; their 
Consequences. The Panic ; its Causes and Eesults. 
Necessity for Diversion of Labor to Tillage of 
the Earth. 

" The time is out of joint? — Hamlet. 

Hard times, we exclaim in later days — a brief, 
emphatic, well-understood designation of the dislo- 
cation of affairs that had seemed to be in brisk, 
harmonious action. It means disappointment, van- 
ished hopes, heavy burdens, struggle, days of care, 
foreboding, fruitless expedients, sleepless nights, or 
harrowing dreams. It tells of homes dispossessed 

— savings of years in gradual, ominous exhaustion 

— ambition broken — heritages gone — old age 
made penniless — daughters, tenderly trained, set 
at challenge with the world for an honest liveli- 
hood ; their accomplishments utilized in drudgery 
for bed and board. Tbis is the current paraphrase 
of hard times in circles of former affluence. 

Among the lowly in society, those whose only 
helpers are their hands, the weighty utterance tells 
of expulsion from one tenement to another, sue- 



6 THE HARD TIMES. 

cessively more miserable or humble ; clothing more 
and more sparse and tattered ; meat diminishing on 
the board ; appetite of children more stinted ; their 
cheeks more wan and haggard ; husbands and fa- 
thers desperate in distress, drowning misery in 
drunkenness. It tells of beggary — crime — pris- 
ons enlarged — suicide — public safety endangered 
— virtue surrendered in hunger and cold — want 
made ferocious — society alarmed lest its founda- 
tions break up in anarchy, by the upheaving of its 
basest elements. 

These are generalizations. But throughout our 
land they are sadly illustrated in the details of 
cities, towns, and villages. Hard times ! For 
four years this sober password has gained in 
gravity of import. For awhile it was panic ; i. e., 
excessive alarm from causes theorized to be but 
temporary and of exaggerated importance. But 
suppositions of speedy recovery have given place 
to a conviction of underlying facts, not yet fully 
developed, and not to be speedily relieved. It 
does not require argument to convince the majority 
of people that these hard times are more than 
panic. Neither are they hopeful of speedy relief. 
Sanguine prediction has given way to calculations 
of worse possibilities. 

This discouragement is not without reason, and 
may be not without benefit. The duty is first to 
comprehend the situation and then act upon the 
occasion with high courage and energy. That the 



THE HARD TIMES. 7 

American nation, with its intelligence and resour- 
ces, is to collapse in discouragement, — to retro- 
grade toward pauperism from its rapid development, 
— none but a misanthrope or a weakling would 
maintain. If the people are stimulated to investi- 
gate causes and intelligently apply remedial meas- 
ures, the discipline of their reverses will accom- 
plish their ultimate benefit. 

The more quickly, therefore, it is recognized that 
there have been potent elements of disaster in late 
nominal prosperity; that the figured increase of 
national and individual wealth has been a false basis 
of confidence, because fictitious; that highways to 
wealth, as supposed, have developed irremediable 
quicksands, and are forever closed ; that these 
later days of sudden accumulation are to be fol- 
lowed by old-time slow and steady gain; that 
industries in former channels are blocked, and must 
be diverted into new courses, or disappear, — the 
more quickly these are apprehended as " unmanage- 
able and uncomfortable facts," the sooner will the 
practical judgment of the people divert their ener- 
gies into new and wide fields of promise, now waste 
and neglected. We would, therefore, append some 
evidence, — 

First. That the existing depression in trade and 
dearth of employment are not in popular apprehen- 
sion exaggerated, but are serious results of causes 
more permanent in their nature than is generally 
considered; .viz., 1, The fiction of paper money, 



8 THE HARD TIMES. 

representing an imaginary worth and stimulating 
speculation; 2, Overproduction of merchandise by 
undue increase of manufactories and improved ap- 
pliances ; 3, Changes in the methods of trade and 
channels of commerce ; 4, Reduction of the volume 
of trade by the decline of values and reduced con- 
sumption. 

Second. That the unimproved lands of the 
United States are a heritage of riches available to 
the industry of present and future population ; 
that by their culture all losses by war or illegiti- 
mate adventure may be restored ; and that the only 
remedy for existing distress is a redistribution of 
labor; its diversion, where in surplus, from trade 
and manufacture to tillage of the earth, the basis 
of all industries and the primary source of all 
wealth. 

Third. That it is the duty of government, phil- 
anthropic associations, and individuals to awaken 
public attention to the true remedy for present 
idleness and impoverishment ; and to devise meas- 
ures by which the population qualified for agricul- 
tural enterprise or labor, may be assisted by intel- 
ligent advice and co-operation to land ownership 
and cultivation. As an effort in this service, a plan 
will be suggested for efficient boards of aid to land 
ownership in large cities, to disseminate widely 
important information upon the subject, to act ad- 
visedly in the organization of companies or colo- 
nies, and to induce capital to lend itself to land for 



THE HARD TIMES. 9 

its development and culture, with assurance of 
security and profit. 

Fourth. To suggest a plan for associate or or- 
ganized settlement upon lands, based upon varied 
experience in the history of western emigration, 
and by the aid of capital, safely and profitably 
employed, ensuring the gradual development of 
communities, with their social and educational ad- 
vantages. 

Fifth. To present statements from their per- 
sonal observation of intelligent residents of States 
advantageous for settlement, as to their respective 
facilities, which shall be reliable data in choice of 
locations or pursuits.* 

1. The first of the active causes of the late 
reverse in national prosperity, above stated, is, The 
fiction of paper money representing an imaginary 
worth and stimulating reckless speculation. 

The inflation of values, or more truthfully the 
flotation of semblances of value, commencing with 
the stimulus of war demand, 1861-64, continued, 
despite the decline of gold, until 1873. To the 
debt of the United States was added an avalanche 
of bonded liability, set afloat for all imaginable 
schemes, from a trans-continental railway to an 
"Emma" mine. The Pacific Railroad was opened 
in 1869. During the two succeeding years there 
were built in the United States 13,360 miles of 
road ; over three times the annual increase for ten 

* See note appended. 



10 THE HARD TIMES. 

years previous. Of the 75,000 miles of road in 
the country, more than one half are under seques- 
tration and pay no interest. The supply of gold, 
silver, copper, lead, iron, coal, oil, etc., that was 
to be forthcoming in the programme of new pro- 
jects, was incalculable ; it was approximated by 
the brass and gas supplied and evolved in their 
organization. 

At length paper issues and public credulity 
reached simultaneously their maximum. Bonds of 
the Northern Pacific Railroad were printed in a 
volume that gorged the current. In the train of 
its collapse followed rapidly other downfalls. Jay 
Cook & Co., its managers, failed on the 18th Sep- 
tember, 1873. On the 19th, nineteen other bank- 
ing houses suspended. On the 20th, the Union 
Trust Company failed. " It was found full of dead 
men's bones."* Then followed a succession of 
bankruptcies, until in three years the mercantile 
failures in the United States had aggregated $650,- 
000,000. On the 1st of January, 1876, the amount 
of railroad bonds defaulted was $789,367,665, of 
which over $500,000,000 were held in the United 
States. The check being in the first instance upon 
a gigantic scheme, but just initiated, was held to 
have no relation to others that were secure of capi- 
tal, having foisted their bonds upon their unwary 
victims. 

It was said to be a mere panic, involving only 

* Fortnightly Review, June, 1876. 



THE HARD TIMES, 



11 



unsound operators of Wall Street. But steadily 
the revulsion widened. Notwithstanding hopeful 
predictions, disaster, paralysis, extinction fell upon 
the varied properties and pursuits of the nation. 
Values that had been standard fell, and surprise at 
calamitous announcements gave way to universal 
distrust. M There is no price for anything," is the 
impulsive utterance to-day. That it should be a 
general impression is not strange when, after four 
years of steady decline of nearly all descriptions 
of property, there should occur, within ten days of 
the current year, a shrinkage on leading stocks of 
the New York list, of $30,000,000, and this not 
upon "the fancies," but on securities that had been 
held as the most reliable investments. The an- 
nexed are but illustrations of the disastrous tide of 
losses familiarized to the American people : — 



June, 1876. June, 1877. 




Pennsylvania Central, 
Illinois Central, . 
New Jersey Central, . 
Delaware and Hudson Canal, 



29 
53 

7 



These companies, monopolizing the highways of 
transit, the central passenger traffic of the nation : 
of seven miles of freighted coal cars per diem, fol- 
lowed the fate of other interests, — real estate, man- 
ufacturing, mining, merchandising, — which had 
gradually settled in valuation, or tumbled in ruin 



12 THE HARD TIMES. 

at the shock of sudden developments of fraud or 
folly. Such revelations of widespread rottenness 
dissipated the theory of a merely sensational origin 
of the troubles. Substantial reasons are now in- 
telligently canvassed. It is certainly of highest 
importance, in forecasting the future, to inquire 
whether the inciting causes of the calamity are 
transitory or continuous for a considerable period. 

That the rash, unreasoning mania for speculation 
during the decade from '63 to '73, was stimulated 
by a redundant, unsound currency, we may hope is 
the predominant conviction of the intelligence of 
the country. The evil wrought its own cure ! 
Its air-castles disappeared ; but, unlike the poetic 
"baseless fabric of a vision," they left a general 
wreck behind. The chief injury — the inflation of 
values — is remedied by their collapse. Eeal 
estate, merchandise and labor approximate to their 
gold valuation before the war. The " New York 
Tribune " tabulated the prices of over sixty articles 
of general consumption during the last fifteen years. 
The same quantity of each costing, — 

May 1, 1860, f 61 55 ; 100 per cent. 

Would cost . . 1, 1864, 140 00 ; 225 

. . 1, 1868, 120 30 ; 195 

1, 1873, 81 43 ; 132 

. . 1, 1877, 65 76 ; 106 



If these prices would remain uninfluenced by exces- 
sive paper circulation, to be affected only by legiti- 



THE HARD TIMES. 13 

mate contingencies of supply and demand, the evils 
of recent inflation would be radically cured. But 
until resumption of specie payments shall have 
been accomplished, there will be constant risk of 
renewed speculation with the first return of confi- 
dence. Seven-fold worse will be the retribution if 
the nation shall conjure again the phantom which 
has misled it, and, repealing the resumption act, 
? hug the rag-baby," as advised by Judge Kelley, 
"in the hour of agony."* 

Had the sole reason of the revulsion, therefore, 
been the inflation of values, there would now be an 
evident tendency towards recovery. Were labor- 
ers generally employed at current prices, their 
means of living would compare favorably with their 
resources in ante-war times. Eents, clothing, fuel, 
furniture, have cheapened thirty-five per cent, to 
fifty per cent., which is more than the decline of 
labor in demand. Indeed, the hard times have 
been a positive benefit to individuals whose in- 
come has diminished not more than ten to fifteen 
per cent., for their remainder has greater purchas- 
ing value, and they have more money by the revul- 

* Mr. William Minot, Jr., in his paper read before the Social Science 
convention, September 5, 1877, admirably illustrated the exaggeration 
of values by the issue of paper legal tender : " A railroad is projected 
to be worth §10,000,000 gold. By law of Congress, every dollar be- 
comes, by virtue of the legal-tender act, two, — that is, $10,000,000 gold 
doubles to $20,000,000 paper. To build the road, the company issues 
$20,000,000 bonds. A census is taken, and the value of the road and 
amount of bonds are both counted as wealth ;-— that is, $40,000,000 are 
reckoned as part of ' the whole resources of the country.' " 



14 THE HARD TIMES. 

sion. But, notwithstanding the decline in prices, 
demand is but slightly quickened, and distress con- 
tinues among the working classes. These continu- 
ous effects cannot be without abiding causes beyond 
the evil of an unsound and inflated currency. 

2. We have stated another potential influence 
to be, in our judgment, overproduction of mer- 
chandise by capital and facilities in excess, and by 
improved appliances. 

It has been aptly said that production and con- 
sumption should, like the two wheels of a car- 
riage, move together, and at the same velocity. 
When, through speculation, production is largely 
in excess, prices yield ruinously; demand ceases 
upon a falling market, and stagnation of trade en- 
sues to both manufacturer, and trader. The de- 
mands of war stimulated in an unprecedented degree 
all manufactures. The requirements of a million 
of men in the field, consumers instead of producers, 
quickened inventive genius to its utmost activity. 
The large profits resulting from the steady advance 
of material in process tempted a reckless invest- 
ment of capital. The expenditures of the Rebel- 
lion, North and South, have probably not been 
overestimated at four thousand millions of dollars 
— the debt of Great Britain. Doubtless there 
was never an equal development of labor-saving 
machinery and increase of productive resources, 
by a nation, within the same period of time. 



THE HARD TIMES. 15 

In 1870, the total valuation of the manufact- 
ures of the United States was, . . . $4,232,325,442 
In 1880, 1,885,861,766 

$2,346,463,676 

An increase, allowing 15 per cent, discount for 
gold, of seventeen hundred (1,700) millions, or 
nearly 100 per cent. 

The population in 1870 was, .... 38,558,371 
In 1860, 31,443,321 

7,115,050 
A gain of 22J- per cent. 

The hands in manufacture, 1870, .... 2,053,996 
In 1860, ........ 1,311,246 

742,750 
A gain of 60 per cent. 

Manufacturing establishments increased 80 per 
cent. 

Now, the increase of lands in the entire United 
States in farms, by the census of 1870, was as 
follows : — 

1870, . 188,921,099 acres. 

1860, 163,110,720 acres. 



28,810,379 acres. 
Or twenty-five (25) per cent, increase. 

Farmers and planters in 1870, .... 2,977,711 
Farmers and planters in 1860, .... 2,423,895 

Increase, ..... . . 553,816 



16 THE HARD TIMES. 

Or 23 per cent.,* — a remarkable coincidence with 
the increase of acres cultivated. 

The increase of lands cultivated, only 25 per 
cent., is more remarkable, considering that mean- 
while the Pacific and other roads had opened vast 
regions of territory with varied soil and climate. 
These figures prove, incontrovertibly, that the dis- 
position of all classes, at the close of the war, was 
to turn from industrious labor on the soil, to con- 
gregate in cities, to enter upon the race for fortune, 
and the pursuit of pleasure. 

With the rush of workmen toward manufacture, 
there was a steadily decreasing ratio of hand-labor 
employed. At the annual meeting of the New 
England Cotton Manufacturers' Association in 
1876, Mr. William A. Burke presented a state- 
ment, showing that in 1838 each operative pro- 
duced in one hour 1,012 pounds of cloth; in 1876, 
3,333 pounds; at an outlay for labor in 1838 of 
4.8 cents per pound; in 1876, 2.8 cents. 

The substitution of machinery for manual labor 
in many other branches of production is equally 
surprising and instructive. Instance the improve- 
ments and multiplication of shoe and leather ma- 



* Meanwhile that farmers increased but 23 per cent. ; 
Artificial Flower-makers increased 100 per cent. ; 
[Artificial TLouR-makers (from barytes) deponent (the census) saith 
not.] 
Billiard and Bowling Saloon Keepers increased 400 per cent.; 
Showmen increased 400 per cent. 
Are not such facts a clew to the mystery of hard times? 



THE HARD TIMES. 17 

chinery ; the use of steam punches and dies in the 
manufacture of copper and tin ; of steam crushing, 
drilling and pumping apparatus in mining opera- 
tions. Illustrations of the results of such inven- 
tions, of great ultimate benefit to the world, are 
numberless ; but with such rapid development as 
of late, they effect a violent displacement of labor. 
More wheat was raised in the Western States by 
steam and horse appliances during the latter years 
of the war than previously, notwithstanding the 
withdrawal of large armies of able-bodied men. 
Each heeling or burnishing machine in a shoe fac- 
tory supplants the work of several men. The 
modern splitting machine in a tannery displaces 
the labor equivalent of fifty men in former days.* 
A recent method of cooling glass moulds turns out 
2,000 pieces in the time for 600 by the old proc- 
ess. One planing mill does the work of 400 men. 
1,300,000 spindles in Fall River make as much 
yarn as 6,000,000 people could spin in the same 
time. A few watch-factories, with 200 to 400 men 
each, not only supply the people of the United 
States, but threaten the handicraft of Switzerland. 
The diamond quarries granite and drills the moun- 
tain tunnels ; donkey engines displace crews of 
old-time stevedores ; steam crushers break the 

* Business is slacking tip a little at the boot factory, North Brookfield, 
and some of the workmen have been put on half time. Five or six 
trimming machines arrived the other day, making the services of fifty 
or sixty workmen unnecessary, and they were discharged. — Daily Ad- 
vertiser, Oct, 12, 1877. 



18 THE HARD TIMES. 

stones ; steam rollers place them and machine 
brushes sweep them in city highways ; elevators 
load and steam winches discharge 3,000-ton steam- 
ships in a day and a night. 

By the multiplication and vigorous operation of 
such inventions simultaneously with the downfall 
of capitalists, markets were glutted with merchan- 
dise and labor discharged. Prices were broken, 
not alone by accumulation of stocks, but the im- 
poverishment of buyers. 

But it may be argued that inevitable consump- 
tion during the last four years must have exhausted 
supplies, and that wheels will now move again to 
supply renewed demand. The trouble is, there 
are too many wheels to move at the least hint of 
opportunity. It is stated that woollen manufacture 
cannot again be steadily remunerative until the ex- 
cess of machinery is either worn out or destroyed. 
There is too much plant in many lines of produc- 
tion. No owner is ready in magnanimity to shut 
down for the good of others. The question is 
debated from week to week how many days or 
hours the mills can run. An intelligent treasurer 
of one of the principal cotton mills estimates that 
the spindles of the country, all in motion usual 
working hours, would produce fifteen (15) per 
cent, above the consumption of the country.* 

* The latest report of cotton interests, October 1, 1S77, is as follows : — 

Print Cloths. — The present condition of the market exhibits a 

greater degree of depression than has hitherto been experienced at any 



THE HARD TIMES. 



19 



Mr. Atkinson, from .statistics (and in such de- 
partments they are reliable), computes that ninety 
per cent, of our population, by their facilities, can 
produce all that one hundred per cent, consume of 
food, fuel, clothing, tools, wares, and the like, and 
also, all that we have markets for abroad. The 
" New York Commercial Bulletin " figures the late 
increase of persons employed and amount produced, 
thus : — 





Persons. 


Quantity. 


Iron manufactures, .... 
Leather manufactures, 
Clothing manufactures, 


7 fold. 

12i » 


10 fold. 

7 



The first named, iron manufacture, is an extraor- 



time since the panic, for although prices reached a lower figure a little 
more than a year ago, it was hut for a few days ; and then it must be 
remembered the cost of production was much less than at present, cot- 
ton now being two cents per pound higher and wages having been ad- 
vanced ten per cent. The stock on hand is full nine hundred thousand 
pieces, and the demand light. Sales of sixty thousand pieces only have 
been made this week, at from 3 ll-16c. cash to 3|c. cash, the market 
closing very sluggish, many printers expressing a firm conviction that a 
further decline to 3J cents will be reached during the next week. We 
think this opinion is warranted by the facts. The present excessive ac- 
cumulation in the hands of manufacturers, which is daily augmenting 
in consequence of the limited demand, must necessarily result in a con- 
stantly falling market until the extreme limit of depression is reached, 
which will probably be when the losses on sales exceed the losses that 
would be suffered by a complete stoppage of the mills. An experience 
of this kind may be necessary to demonstrate to some minds the neces- 
sity for a curtailment of production. Nine-tenths of our manufacturers 
are already convinced, and await the conversion of the " twelfth jury- 
man." — Fall River News. 



20 THE HARD TIMES. 

dinary illustration of the excessive development 
of plant, beyond use. 

The last report of the American Iron and Steel 
Association, shows that there are in the United 
States 714 completed furnaces. In blast at the 
close of 1875, 293; of 1876, 236. The entire 
capacity of production is 5,000,000 tons per an- 
num. Yet, with the abnormal consumption of the 
last four years, for railroads, etc., the consumption 
of the country has not been above half the quan- 
tity, say 2,500,000 tons. The shoe manufactories 
speedily supply all national requirements ; so that 
their work-people have but periodical employment, 
and for terms gradually diminished. Manufactures 
of luxury must very slowly recuperate. In the 
lavish expenditure of flush times, such products 
were widely distributed. Houses of the wealthy 
are crowded with articles of ornament. The mid- 
dling and poorer classes, after their late experience, 
will be content with the supply of necessities. 
Railways have been projected, not from positive 
utility, but to float the bonds of capitalists, who, 
having disposed of them, retire to count their gains. 
Dwellings in cities and their suburbs have been 
multiplied beyond the ratio of population. 

The result of these and many other kindred facts 
is far more serious than is apprehended in the dis- 
placement of labor. The thoughtful man cannot 
pass over Boston Common at this, the best work- 
ing season of the year, without alarm as well as 



THE HARD TIMES. 21 

intense sympathy, to see the paths lined with un- 
happy, idle men. At a meeting recently held in 
Philadelphia,* representing various co-operative 
associations, it was stated that in that city there 
were 150,000 working men, women, and youth 
unemployed. The fury of the recent labor out- 
break was startling, but the underlying cause may 
be readily brought to light. 

3. Changes in the methods of trade and channels 
of commerce have dispensed with labor. 

The fancied ease and luxury of city life, com- 
pared with the quiet labor of rural pursuits, have 
for many years drawn from the country to increase 
urban population. The temptations of business 
activity during the war aggravated this tendency. 
These impulses have added to the excess of labor 
for all requirements of trade and commerce. At 
the close of the war, Governor Andrew, foreseeing 

* A correspondent writing from Philadelphia, states that in that city 
alone, twenty thousand houses are' to he let or sold. The streets, we 
are told, are encumbered with poor, who being accustomed to town life, 
prefer misery to the territorial property they could so easily acquire. 
The half of the workshops and factories are idle. The American mer- 
cantile marine is in the greatest decadence ; last year scarcely twenty- 
one thousand tons of steamboats were constructed. Immigration is 
almost wholly suspended, and, what is more serious, the Americans are 
beginning to emigrate. The master-masons of London, who are engaged 
in a struggle with their workmen, lately deliberated as to whether they 
would not do well to procure men from the United States. The situation 
is a very singular one, and absolutely opposed to what was regarded as 
normal. America sends her emigrants to the Old World, and a still 
greater number to Australia. Heaven guard us from imagining that a 
phenomenon so contrary to the nature of things could last for a long 
series of years ! — Journal des Debats. 



22 THE HARD TIMES. 

the existing state of affairs, attempted to organize 
a movement for retaining in the South some of the 
strong arms and clear heads of the citizen-soldiery 
then to be disbanded. But the men had their pay 
in their pockets. They had been in deprivation 
and exposure in absence from home. The in- 
flated condition of business made ready employ- 
ment. This aggregation of trade tended to organi- 
zation that diminished the ratio of labor, when 
economy should be enforced. The expenditure for 
personal assistance in the movement of merchan- 
dise, either at wholesale or retail, has been con- 
stantly reduced in proportion to the total value or 
quantity. Old methods, slow and laborious, have 
yielded to the energetic spirit of £he age. The 
massing of capital has consolidated trade. One 
powerful firm replaces many small establishments 
of former days, and effects larger sales at less out- 
lay for clerks and portage. Steam facilitates the 
warehousing and transportation of merchandise at 
the economy of human labor. Great staples are 
moved directly, in marvellous quantity, from inland 
sources to shipboard, thence by steam to foreign 
markets, in such heavy tonnage and with such rapid 
speed as to reduce essentially the percentage of 
manual aid in their progress. The " London Econ- 
omist" shows that the Suez canal annihilated the 
use of 2,000,000 tons of sailing vessels, and in- 
curred immense loss in the extinction of previously 
existing appliances of the India trade. Within 



THE HARD TIMES. 23 

thirty years the Maine coasting trade, which then 
employed a fleet that filled the piers of Boston, has 
been largely suspended. Lumber, ice, bricks, hay, 
coal, iron, grain, cotton, flour, no longer cumber 
streets as formerly, but glide around or under them 
in trains to their destination of consumption or 
export. Thus sailors, stevedores, truckmen, por- 
ters, clerks are supplanted. Comparison between 
a modern freight train or steam collier with an old 
sailing packet ; of an elevator with a grain store of 
a quarter of a century since ; a palatial retail estab- 
lishment of to-day, and its thorough, systematic 
organization, with the range of petty shops that 
then would have represented its lines of trade, but 
together do only a moiety of its business, — these 
contrasts will impressively illustrate the diminution 
of hand-labor, not in actual number, but in propor- 
tion to the volume of transactions. 

Again, a strong tendency to the disturbance of 
manufacturing labor is the removal of factories to 
sources of raw material. Cotton factories are 
prosperous and increasing in Georgia ; sugar refin- 
ing machinery is being exported to Cuba. It ip 
discovered to be needless to transport raw cotton 
from the South, where labor is abundant, to mills 
at the North, to be returned in coarse drills, with 
two freights added to its cost ; in fact, by the use 
of loose cotton from the presses they save two 
cents per pound from the cost in New England. 
In 1870 36,000,000 pounds of cotton were con- 



24 THE HARD TIMES. 

sumedm the South; in 1873, 60,000,000 pounds.* 
Even the impracticable Spaniards have discovered 
that they can run molasses through centrifugals at 
home, extract and then export the sugar, at a 
saving, rather than market a bulky liquid across 
seas, with heavy loss by leakage, insurance and 
freights. 

4. The reduction of the volume of trade by the 
decline in values and by economy of consumption 
has permanently displaced many employes. 

Merchandising must discount many of its ex- 
penses, assumed in lavish times, to save any profit 
under present adverse conditions. Sales to the 
same extent in quantity and at the same percentage 
of profit as in 1873 will not now cover the general 
expenses of many establishments. One hundred 
thousand dollars in value of dry goods, metals, 
hardware or lumber, at prices of 1872, would net 
$50,000 to $65,000 in 1877, or less. What pros- 
pect for a glass-factory organized upon the scale of 
ten years since, if its product sells to-day for $1 to 

* Mr. Cheney of Lebanon, a brother of President Cheney of Bates Col- 
lege, who has of late years lived much at the South, has recently visited 
Peterborough, where there were once five cotton mills, but now only 
three. He says in a letter to the " Lebanon Free Press," that " cotton 
manufacturing in New Hampshire has probably seen its best days. If 
an old mill burns it will rarely be rebuilt, for capitalists arc not likely to 
put more money into manufacturing business so far from the raw mate- 
rial, and where fuel is so scarce. More mills have been built in Georgia 
since the war than arc now in operation in all New Hampshire. They 
arc paying factories, too." All this is very true, and the list of mills 
burned and not rebuilt might be enlarged. — Bostoii Daily Advertiser, 
Oct. 31, 1877. 



THE HARD TIMES. 25 

$4 at that date, while its richly cut and most profit- 
able wares find hardly any market? One hundred 
tons of iron selling at $450, with ten per cent, 
profit, in 1873, would yield $45 toward store 
expenses ; to-day, at the same per cent, of profit, 
they would sell for $185, or with profit of $18.50 ; 
meanwhile consumption is reduced say 50 per cent. 
Many manufactures of iron are cheaper to-day than 
before the war, — in fact, within this generation ; 
instance cut nails at 2J cents per pound. Rigid 
economy, therefore, reduces all expenditures of 
merchants to absolute necessity. The aggregate 
of sales is further reduced by the same economy in 
living by the consumer. The grocer, wholesale or 
retail, finds diminished consumption of luxuries for 
the table. Olives, entremets and foreign delicacies, 
which have paid the largest profits, are abandoned 
by their customers for substantial and cheaper 
articles of food. Hence the compulsion upon 
trades-people to reduce their salaried force, — in 
many cases by the discharge of esteemed and faith- 
ful assistants, with regret and commiseration, — 
because they must prosecute their trade by one- 
third or one-half the number of hands. 

"What," exclaims Mr. Wells, in the "North 
American Review," " is to be done with the labor 
that improved machinery and methods have made 
in excess of demand ? " His answer is : "Most cer- 
tainly either in one of two alternatives. Either new 
wants have got to be found or created, for the sup- 

2 



26 THE HAED TIMES. 

plying of which a larger field for the employment 
will be afforded than now exists, or else the 
emigration of labor from the country and the 
formation of a permanent pauper class among us 
will begin." In a second paper in solution of the 
problem, "How shall the nation regain pros- 
perity?" Mr. Wells argues that these new wants 
for our products and wide field for labor are to be 
found in the markets of the world opened to our 
manufacturers by entire freedom of trade. 

The writer is a convert from the protective 
teachings of his youth, to the abstract truthfulness 
of the principles of free trade. He cannot escape 
from the axiom which is their foundation, that a 
nation, like an individual, is or will become rich 
with money possessed, in proportion to the oppor- 
tunity to supply the most of its wants with the 
least outlay thereof. Yet, as a remedy for present 
suffering of unemployed work-people, the hope 
from establishment of free trade is too remote for 
practical .service. Legislation is to be reversed 
and markets established before benefits can be 
realized. Meanwhile the horse starves while the 
grass grows. 

Rather transfer idle but willing labor to the 
field ready to return its harvest of food for sup- 
port, and a surplus beside, wherewith it shall 
become a buyer from the manufactory. Thus 
the new wants and the larger market may be 
most quickly developed within our own territory. 



THE HARD TIMES. 27 

Doubtless, with the growth of more intelligent and 
liberal political opinions, greater freedom of trade 
within the nations will in time employ the energy 
and genius of our nation to contribute to the 
comfort and luxury of the world. 

The question, What shall be done with the idle ? 
is imperative for immediate solution. The press 
announces frequently suicide in despair of liveli- 
hood. Strange sound in a land of plenty ! Yet, 
with teeming harvests of food crossing a continent 
in transport for bread to foreign lands, there are 
thousands in our cities of honest mechanics, opera- 
tives and laborers beyond any possible demand for 
their employment, apprehending an approaching 
winter with dread inquiries, What shall we and our 
children eat ? Wherewithal shall we be clothed ? 



28 THE HARD TIMES. 



No. II. 

The Public Lands a Heritage of Riches. Wealth of 
France from Agriculture. Payment of the German 
Indemnity. Superlative Advantages of Americans 
Lying Waste. 

2. The unimproved lands of the United States 
are a heritage of riches, available to the industry of 
present and future population ; by their culture all 
losses by war or illegitimate adventure may be 
made good ; and the only remedy for existing dis- 
tress is a redistribution of labor ; its diver- 
sion FROM TRADE AND MANUFACTURE, WHERE IN 
SURPLUS, TO TILLAGE OF THE EARTH, THE BASIS 
OF ALL INDUSTRIES and THE PRIMARY SOURCE OF 
ALL WEALTH. 

Adam Smith has conclusively argued that "wealth 
arising from the solid improvements of agriculture 
is most durable. No equal capital puts into motion 
a greater quantity of productive labor than that of 
the farmer. Not only his servants, but his cattle, 
become producers. Nature, too, labors along with 
man. Her work remains as a gain after deducting 
everything which can be regarded as the work of 
man." 

At this harvest time, when the people engaged 
in rural occupations gather to hear the prose and 



THE HARD TIMES. 29 

poetry of country life set forth in eloquence and 
verse, it is needless to dwell at length upon its 
utility or its charms. That agricultural lands are 
the most secure investment of capital; that they 
offer the most steady opportunity for useful indus- 
try and thereby the greatest assurance of " health, 
peace, and competence," of personal independence, 
freedom from vicious stimulus or contact, a sense 
of individual manliness in the consciousness of 
possession, and, according to the degree of educa- 
tion and the amount of leisure to be afforded, facil- 
ities for mental recreation and improvement, — 
these are propositions generally accepted as axi- 
oms, from acquaintance with those whose life occu- 
pation has demonstrated their truthfulness ; or 
from associations, in fascinating remembrance, with 
the charms of nature. 

Yet it is a marvellous anomaly, that with these 
truths, intelligently accepted by the American peo- 
ple, and their usual prompt and practical action 
for their interests, they should allow lands to lie 
waste which, as sources of wealth, independence 
and happiness are coveted by all older civilizations. 
The explanation has been, the attractions of the 
apparent luxury and ease, the exciting dissipations 
and hope of greater gains, in city life. But now, 
when the pressure of want, the stern demands for 
means whereby not to enjoy, but to live, press 
upon thousands of unhappy, impoverished popula- 
tion, they are ready to return to that primitive 



30 THE HARD TIMES. 

occupation, Divinely appointed as man's resource 
for subsistence. 

A comparison of the landed domain of the United 
States with the area of other great nationalities ; 
its variety of climate and natural facilities for pro- 
duction, with their agricultural resources ; its 
possibilities, compared with their production and 
support of population, — will exhibit the beneficent 
design of Providence that this may be the land of 
plenty for a great people. 

For illustration, let the comparison be with 
France. The United States, without Alaska, cover 
3,000,000 square miles, having at present a popu- 
lation of 39,000,000. France has an area of 204,- 
000 square miles, or l-15th of the United States, 
and supports 36,594,000 inhabitants. 

Sixty (60) per cent, of this number, and fifty- 
four (54) per cent, of this small area are devoted 
to agriculture, while, of the United States, not ten 
(10) per cent, of their territory, and but forty 
(40) per cent, of their people, are thus employed.* 

Is this disproportion owing to greater climatic or 
arable advantages of France? The United States 
range through eighteen degrees more of temperate 
and tropical latitude, with two-fifths of their area, 

* The table from Mr. Harris-Gastcll's Report on Labor in Prussia, 
gives the proportions of agricultural labor in Russia, 86 per cent. ; Italy, 
77 per cent.; France, 51 per cent.; Belgium, 51 per cent.; Prussia, 45 
per cent. ; England, 12 per cent. " If England had to-day 200,000 more 
small farms, would she not have 500,000 less paupers ? "—Mr. Zuwke, 
on the Channel Islands, 



THE HARD TIMES. 31 

or 1,200,000 square miles, a valley enriched by 
the greatest rivers of the world, depositing theii 
alluvial mould to such depth as to render the region 
unsurpassed for agricultural production by any on 
the globe. France has a most favorable climate and 
a fertile soil. But the United States far excel it in 
the range of products, both staple and luxurious. 
They supply the bulk of the world's consumption 
of cotton. Tobacco, sugar, rice, wool and wine 
are as readily grown as all cereals. The fig and 
the banana of Florida are added to the orange and 
lemon of Provence. 

In France, seventy-five per cent, of the agri- 
cultural laborers are owners of land. The best 
cultivation is by the peasant proprietors. In one 
respect the landed interests of the United States 
and France are similar, every facility being offered 
in the latter country, since the revolution of 1789, 
for the division of estates. The carnival of blood 
which marked that convulsion, like our own more 
sanguinary conflict for the abolition of slavery, 
after its fury was passed, left the fruits of its 
victories in emancipation of the people. That 
fratricidal strife broke the feudal grasp upon 
the territory of France, and opened the soil to 
the ownership of its occupants. "In England, the 
manor won, the peasant lost. In France, the peas- 
ant won, the manor lost. In Germany, the game 
has been drawn," * 

* Systems of Land Tenure in Various Countries. — Cobden Club. 



32 THE HARD TIMES. 

Pauperism reigns in England. There are but 
250,000 landholders, and but twelve per cent, of 
its population is agricultural. One-eighth of all 
England and Wales is in the hands of but 100 
owners; of 900,000 freeholders, 700,000 own less 
than one acre. In France, there are 50,000 great 
proprietors, 300 hectares ; 500,000 medium pro- 
prietors, 30 hectares ; 5,000,000 small proprietors, 
3 hectares ; total, 6,000,000 proprietors." * Its 
territory is truly the property of the nation. 

Turgot, author of the law of 1791, by which the 
great change was legally established, wrote : " Pub- 
lic prosperity has for its first foundation the culture 
of the earth. The territory of France, in all its 
extent, is free as the people who dwell upon it." 
That law which swept away forever the entail of 
estates by primogeniture, the foundation of aristo- 
cratic institutions, can never be restored. It 
established the modern democracy of France. To 
its influence, more than any other, must be attrib- 
uted the intelligent republicanism, which, in the 
present crisis, is the hope of the nation. 

These six millions of rural proprietors became 
conservators of law which protected their property ; 
enemies of the Commune ; the counterpoise of 
radicalism ; guarantors of tranquillity. When the 
socialists of the Faubourg St. Antoine were shot in 
droves in the streets of Paris, or led by thousands 
to the arches of Versailles, the peasant population 

* M. dc Lavcrgne, Economic Ruralc dc la France, since 1789. 



THE HARD TIMES. 33 

of France breathed more securely in their ham- 
lets. 

This political bearing of statistics of occupations 
is not irrelevant to our subject. One of the most 
ominous clangers of the hard times is that of penury 
made ferocious ; of agrarian riots, not from reason 
or logical conviction, but the pressure of want and 
the imminence of starvation. The anarchy that 
loosens the bands of social and financial security, 
thrusts the suffering classes into greater depriva- 
tions. The conflagrations of Pittsburg blocked the 
highways of industry with its ruins, paralyzing 
labor far more than the reconstruction of its appli- 
ances would demand.* 

Were the turbulent elements of Paris the con- 
trolling power in France, the empire, the republic, 

* The last railway strike will cause great detriment to the peopling of 
the United States ; it will deter and frighten many Europeans disposed 
to emigrate ; it will especially stop the introduction of capital. A new 
country has a necessity for money and men, hut America has at present 
become very dangerous for European capital. Except the scrip of the 
federal debt, no investment exists on the other side of the Atlantic which 
can tempt the most adventurous Dutch or English. 

It is not only the material loss of capital which is to be regretted ; the 
" New York Journal of Commerce," however, calculates at $26,000,000 
the damage sustained by five of the principal Mnes. At present the com- 
panies are suing the counties and states to recover compensation for the 
prejudice they have experienced from riots. The county in which Pitts- 
burg is situated, is asked for $4,000,000. The material losses are, in 
such cases, the smallest part of the injury; what has a greater and 
more durable importance is the commotion — industrial, political and 
social — which results from a disturbance so profound as the late strike 
in the United States. No doubt that country is undergoing an industrial 
crisis, the intensity and duration of which are unprecedented. The cause 
of it is the wholly premature and excessive development of the manu- 
facturing interests of the nation. — Journal des Debats. 
2* 



34 THE HARD TIMES. 

or what may succeed them, would be only succes- 
sive stages to ruin. But, though torn by political 
convulsions, it has a conservative force in its agri- 
cultural industries, quietly maintaining its pursuits 
and adding to its wealth. The 6,000,000 frugal 
landed proprietors are the heavy weights maintain- 
ing the equilibrium of public security. 

The stability and patriotism of Prussia are at- 
tributed largely to the reformation of her land 
laws creating a numerous class of proprietors. 
The socialism of Belgium among the manufactur- 
ing operatives does not reach the land-owners. 

In like manner, the permanent order and safety 
of the American republic are to depend upon the 
conservative influence of its country population. 
Already the police administrations of large cities 
are under the guardianship of State governments, 
as shelter from corruption. When the foreign 
laborer, who has agitated against wealth in the tur- 
bulent wards of a metropolis, has invested his sav- 
ings in an abandoned farm in New England, he is 
suddenly converted to the difference between meum 
and tuum, and awakes to the idea of the right of 
possession. 

There can be no more conclusive proof of the 
solid wealth of French agriculturists than the his- 
tory of the payment of the Prussian indemnity. 
It was largely by their hoarded gains that France 
was freed from German occupation. 

M. Victor Bonnet has made an exhibit of the 



THE HARD TIMES. 35 

patriotic fervor and great resources of the French 
nation with which they paid the enormous ransom 
to their conquerors. "Never before," he writes, 
"was a similar financial problem imposed upon a 
nation."* The war which begun in July, 1870, 
terminated in 1871. . Its cost meanwhile was $2,- 
000,000,000. Peace was obtained by the pledge 
of $1,000,000,000 gold. The fortress of Verdun 
was held until the last fraction of this demand was 
cancelled, viz., in September, 1873, or less than 
two years and a half from the elate of the negotia- 
tion ; and in addition, also, of interest, the expense 
of the Prussian army of occupation and the separ- 
ate ransoms of various cities, making an ao-oregate 

1 © CO © 

of $1,200,000,000 besides the current national ex- 
penses. The last napoleon was paid before the 
departure of the last detachment of Prussians. 

Mr. Edward Young, chief of the national bureau 
of statistics, writes : — 

" In the summer of 1872, 1 observed one evening in Paris 
a number of poorly dressed men, waiting for the doors to 
open, of what I supposed was a place of amusement ; an 
orderly crowd, each one keeping his place in the line. The 
next morning I found them still outside the building. Their 
all-night vigil led me to suppose they were pensioners. On 
inquiry I learned they were small capitalists waiting for the 
doors to open, that each could subscribe to a portion of the 
indemnity loan. A few had sold their places to bankers ; 
but the larger part had brought their savings, and were 
induced by faith and patriotism to aid their country and 

* Revue des Deux Mondes, July 1, 1873. 



36 THE HARD TIMES. 

make a safe deposit for themselves The economical 

habits of French people are well known ; but it is probable 
that the peculiar land tenure of France exerts an influence 
on those in rural occupations not so intensely felt by men 
engaged in other pursuits." 

In the midst of the appalling disasters which fell 
so rapidly upon that people, new paper w r as issued 
to the amount of $360,000,000.* The amount 
was afterwards increased to $600 f 000,000, which 
w^as maintained at par, except at the payment of 
the first instalment to the Prussians, w^hen gold 
rose to 2 1 per cent. Subsequently the premium 
declined until it was insignificant. 

This history is really marvellous in contrast wdth 
that of American finance during our war period. 
It might be claimed that the ability of France to 
meet the task imposed upon her was due to her 
accumulations as an old nation ; but M. Bonnet 
proves that the increased trade of France in two 
years since the war, and the profits of her entire 
commerce in the same period, reached the siun of 
2,000,000,000 francs, or two-fifths the ransom. 
The wealth of France distributed among the peo- 
ple, as well as the specie reserve of 52 per cent, in 
the Bank of France, furnished the basis of her 
paper issue and maintained it at par ; there being 
in the hands of the nation, practically, available as 
deposit if called for, an amount that would make a 
total of 6,000,000,000 francs in gold and silver; 

* Second article of M. Bonnet, July 15, 1874. 



THE HARD TIMES. 37 

because the people had faith in the national sol- 
vency. 

It has been shown that France is rich ; but what 
is the chief source of her treasures ? Not the in- 
genious and fanciful bijouterie of Paris, but the 
staple product of her soil, husbanded by those 
whose toil has gained it. M. Bonnet states that 
the artisan class are improvident ; but that the ag- 
ricultural population are habitually economical. 
Laing, a British writer, says ; — 

" No one can compare the present state of France with 
that which prevailed in 1789 without being struck with the 
great increase of natural riches. Throughout France the 
greater number of laborers and farmers are at the same 
time proprietors. Nothing is more common than to see a 
day-laborer proprietor of a cottage which serves as an asy- 
lum for his family, a garden which feeds his children, and a 
field which he cultivates at his leisure hours." 

Sir Robert Peel gave his explanation of the com- 
parative wealth of France and England thus : — 

" In England one person in five spends all his income, or 
his earnings ; in France there is scarcely one in forty who 
does the same ; the other thirty-nine make savings. 1 ' 

The immobility of the wealth of France, accu- 
mulated by industry and economy, is only to be 
accounted for by the permanent character of its ag- 
ricultural investments. The farm lands of France 
are mortgaged to but 5 per cent, of their value, 
while in England mort°;a2;es amount to 58 per cent. 
The French do not believe the fr fallacy that debt is 



38 THE HAED TIMES. 

wealth," though it may be represented by bank- 
note engraving. " Capital from commerce," said 
Adam Smith, "is precarious in possession. The 
civil wars of Flanders chased away the great com- 
merce of Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges. But Flan- 
ders still continues to be one of the richest, best 
cultivated and most populous regions of France. 
The wealth that arises from agriculture cannot be 
destroyed by one or two centuries of hostile depre- 
dations." 

"Experience proves," writes M. de Lavergne, 
"that fortunes exclusively movable rarely pass to 
the second generation. The facility of realization, 
Luxury, bad speculations, almost always complete 
their ruin." 

The French people are generally regarded of vol- 
atile temperament, yet their conservatism in finance, 
the solidity of their investments, convey lessons of 
wisdom to other nations. "France," said Mr. 
Zincke in the " Fortnightly Review," " was in the 
centre of a cyclone in 1857 and 1873, while the rest 
of the world was strewn with every species of com- 
mercial desolation." The history of her finance in 
the former period, as during the latter, which has 
been considered, vindicates the assertion. Industry 
and commerce had been unduly stimulated ; trade 
was overcrowded ; production had accumulated 
merchandise beyo-nd demand. "Had we," says 
1VI. Bonnet, "increased the issues of paper money 
and created a factitious capital, we would have 



THE HARD TIMES. 39 

added to the difficulty of the situation. The situa- 
tion was grave, and the Bank of France in clanger 
of suspension of specie payment ; but, instead of 
palliating the evil by that course, it advanced its 
rate to seven, eight, and ten per cent., and com- 
pelled speculation to stop. c Trade had been guilty 
of excesses, and it was put on healthful dieting.' " 
Meanwhile the solid reserves of metallic wealth 
were undisturbed. 

In contrast to this, note the effect upon Germany 
of being the recipient suddenly of the French in- 
demnity. France has had sweet revenge in the 
intoxication of the cup she was forced to yield her 
enemy. The disbursement suddenly in Germany 
of 5,000,000,000 francs stimulated public and pri- 
vate enterprise, until a financial panic and revulsion 
followed. Sudden wealth is alike daao*erous to the 
nation and individual. Slow progress in wealth, at 
the end, is proved most substantial and durable. 

The above statements, we believe, clearly demon- 
strate that the chief basis of the financial strength 
and policy of France is the agricultural wealth 
drawn from the soil by a numerous and thrifty 
rural population. Six millions find average re- 
muneration for their labor on an area not equal to 
that of the State of Texas. Of that moderate ter- 
ritory, not above one-tenth was favored with spe- 
cial natural fertility. Another tenth is absolutely 
sterile. All the remaining productive area is the 
result of the labor of man, in draining marshes, 



40 THE HARD TIMES. 

irrigating wastes, rotating crops, and utilizing to 
the utmost all means of fertilization. 

With tenfold greater area and natural facilities, 
the people of the United States have only 3,000,- 
000 in the cultivation of its soil.* 

It may be asked, " Are Americans to be lowered 
to the condition of French farmers ? to be content 
with their small incomes, trivial life, and meagre 
fare ?" This can never be possible until generation 
after generation shall have been debased in political 
and religious thraldom. The fact that the French 
rural population, with their disadvantages of gross 
ignorance, priestly subjection, and moderate earn- 
ings, do secure such substantial wealth, and a high 
degree of social happiness suggests the superlative 
advantages open to free and enlightened American 
citizens. 

The comparison has been made with France as a 
nation equal in numbers nearly with the United 
States ; but like results are found wherever indus- 
trious, economical agriculture prevails upon lands 

* The United States are still the promised land for agriculturists 
If a European artisan would commit an act of folly to go and seek for. 
tunc there, where only misery awaits him, rural laborers may go there 
with almost the certainty of acquiring ease. 

In those vast regions, an agricultural population of 200,000,000 might 
be planted, and they could live at ease; gradually, by the side of the 
farming operations, that population would have begun working the 
mines which arc in abundance in that territory, then to extend their 
navigation, favored by the immense extent of the coasts, and the num- 
ber and depth of the rivers; finally, a little later, when capital had 
become more abundant and the population more dense, factories would 
have sprung up of themselves.— Journal des Dibats. 



THE HARD TIMES. 41 

widely distributed in ownership among the people. 
In the Channel Islands of England, owing to an 
exceptional land tenure, there are many small farms, 
and consequently the loveliest, happiest homes on 
an equal area of all the United Kingdom. The 
farmers of Holland have gold at their bankers ; 
Tuscany, with its vineyards and its gardens, is 
the Eden of Italy; while the Campagna of the 
Papal States, leased in large tracts by absent land- 
lords, is a desolation. 

The subject to this point has been treated solely 
in its material, monetary relations ; but mere sub- 
sistence is no elevation above animal life. Ameri- 
cans cannot, ought not, to yield educational and 
social privileges for pecuniary gain. By associate 
colonization, not isolated settlement, these essen- 
tials of their natural life may be transferred and 
developed. An instructive letter upon this sub- 
ject, from an intelligent, prosperous citizen of 
Kansas, written from " a $50,000 brick schoolhouse 
in the town of Paola, of 2,000 inhabitants,' 9 well 
sustains this opinion. It will be placed, with other 
similar testimony, as appendix to these papers.* 

Happiness, as well as subsistence, is the legiti- 
mate pursuit of a man. Indeed, without the former, 
the latter is impossible to its natural limit. Rural 
life, it cannot be doubted, yields fully the average 
of pleasure. Sunny France is not so much more 
sunny than our Virginia, Iowa or California, except 
in the brightness and cheer of its people. 

* See note appended. 



42 THE HARD TIMES. 

Their light-heartedness is the envy of all other 
nationalities. Artists picture the fete days and 
harvest scenes of Normandy and Provence for the 
relief of our sober American homes. Their patient 
and severe toil, steady to its aim of land-owner- 
ship, is enlivened by anticipation of a cottage 
home. "Perette goes to market to buy eggs — the 
eggs hatched chickens — the chickens a pig — the pig 
a calf — the calf a cow." * " The Flemish small 
farmer gathers grass and manure along the high- 
ways. He raises rabbits ; with the money he buys 
a goat ; next a pig ; next a calf." f 

Mr. Gilbert Hamerton sketches vividly the sim- 
plicity, contentment, and joyousness of his life 
thenceforward in his gradual accumulation. 

"The peasantry of to-day," he says, "are, on the 
whole, a class of people as happy as their fore- 
fathers were wretched. The lad calls his cows and 
his sweetheart in the roulade that ends his song. 
Their customs imply the constant practice of very 
great virtues — temperance, frugality, industry, pa- 
tience, self-control, self-denial." Yet they are 
utterly ignorant and superstitious. 

What a future of happiness and wealth is for our 
republic, if, with political and religious freedom 
guaranteed by past sacrifices of blood and treas- 
ure, its broad domain can be planted and harvested 
by a people exemplifying these virtues, following in 
the train of religion and knowledge ! 

* La Fontaine. t Systems of Land Tenure. 



THE HAKD TIMES, 43 



No. III. 

Freedom of the Public Lands. Security of Capital 
Loaned to Settlers. Increase of Agricultural 
Exports, — of Fruit Culture. Land Settlement 
"the best Affair of Business." 

Third. It is the duty of governments, philan- 
thropic associations and individuals to awaken 
public attention to the true remedy for present 
idleness and impoverishment, and to devise meas- 
ures by which the population qualified for agricult- 
ural enterprise or labor may be assisted by reliable 
advice and co-operation to land-ownership. 

As an effort in this service, a plan will be sug- 
gested for efficient boards of aid to land-owner- 
ship in large cities, to disseminate widely impor- 
tant information upon the subject, to act advisorily 
in the organization of companies or colonies, and 
to induce capital to lend itself to land for its 
development and culture, with assurance of security 
and profit. 

The government of the United States, for the 
welfare of the people, pursues a policy of utmost 
liberality concerning the public domain. The early 
practice was to exclude all settlers, without pre- 
vious payment, to obtain revenue from sales. Sub- 
sequent laws have sought, primarily, to secure 



44 THE HARD TIMES. 

their occupation and improvement, until of late 
years they have been, practically, a free gift. 

The first of these generous enactments was the 
pre-emption law, by which any head of a family, 
widow, single man or woman over twenty-one years 
of age, a citizen, or one declaring his intention to 
become a citizen, could enter upon and gain a title 
to 160 acres of land, with a credit of from twelve 
to thirty-three months, at $1.25 per acre. If within 
ten miles of any land-grant railroad, the price is 
$2.50 per acre. Some exemptions of land and 
individuals are made in the details of the act. 

2. Following the pre-emption law was the more 
beneficent homestead act, by which land for homes 
is given to those of the same classes who will in 
good faith settle thereon for five years, to the ex- 
tent of 160 acres of $1.25 valuation, or 80 acres at 
$2.50. 

3. The provisions of the soldier-bounty act. 

4. The timber-planting act: giving 160 acres 
for the cultivation of one-fourth in timber. 

In 1875 there was a diminution in entries of 
1,500,000 acres from the amount entered in 1874; 
a tendency to continue, because fertile lands have 
mostly passed to railroads or private holders. But 
from these parties they can be obtained upon equally 
or more favorable terms ; valuable lands being 
offered entirely upon credit to actual settlers. 

While legislation concerning the public domain 
is all that can be desired, government can render 



THE HARD TIMES. 45 

further service to the people in disseminating 
knowledge concerning it. The reports of the last 
five years of the general land office contain slight 
information beyond elaborate tables and legal 
papers. The maps accompanying the report of 
1876 display the location of unsold lands ; but that 
of Florida alone exhibits by distinctive shadings 
the characteristics of the soil as pineland, swamp, 
prairie, ponds, etc. Map 24, showing the surveys 
from ocean to ocean, is a highly creditable speci- 
men of topographical work. But there is a lack of 
description concerning the vegetation, nature of 
the soil, water or facilities for irrigation, supplies 
of fuel or lumber, distance from settlements, etc., 
of essential importance. 

The abstract of surveying operations for 1876 
appends very brief descriptive allusions to Ne- 
braska, Minnesota, Dakota and Montana. Of Ne- 
braska it is said that " 278 descriptive lists of 
qualities of soil were prepared and furnished to the 
proper local offices"; and of Minnesota, "117 
sheets, describing the timber and quality of the 
soil as disclosed by field notes." These cursory 
allusions are provocative of curiosity for particu- 
lars ; especially of the large tracts which, it is 
stated, contrary to the late paper of Major Powell 
before the National Academy, are " specially adapt- 
ed to agriculture, stock and fruit raising."* 

* Major Powell's statement was to the effect that there was not of 
available land belonging to the United States, enough left to make an 



46 THE HARD TIMES. 

These suggestions would not disparage the effi- 
ciency of the land department, as probably there 
were no means for further outlay. But as here- 
after the labor of the bureau is to be lessened, by 
the satisfaction of grants to roads and schools, it 
would be of great service to land-settlers if more 
information was on file in Eastern cities. The 
writer has found difficulty in obtaining authentic 
information concerning public or private lands open 
to settlement, except from the publications of rail- 
road agencies or press correspondence, too fre- 
quently prepared to be readable rather than 
reliable. 

Reports of the department of agriculture do not 
presume to meet this want, but to give the papers 
of its experimental officers and others as special- 
ties — as the grape, bees, etci Yet the most satis- 
factory exhibits of the agricultural and pastoral 
capabilities of lands in market are found in the 
reports of that, department for 1868 and 1869. 
The want is for official hand-books, for guidance 
and instruction. The centennial report of Kansas 
is a model for such publications. 

average county in Wisconsin. Mr. Bayard Taylor, on the contrary, 
after observing the great results obtained by irrigation in Colorado, the 
crops being more sure of moisture than when exposed to droughts, 
where rains were the dependence, says : "I am fast inclining to the 
opinion that there is no American desert this side of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. In 1859, the lowest computation of the extent of the desert was 
200 miles ; yet, in the Smoky Hill route, I saw less than 50 miles to 
which the term could be properly applied." lie predicts that all the 
region will in time be as productive farm land as any in the East. 



THE HARD TIMES. 47 

While the general government can do vastly- 
more than all other agencies in supplying knowl- 
edge concerning the national heritage, philan- 
thropy can render great service by making it avail- 
able to those to whom it is the greatest boon. It 
can render no more charitable service than to trans- 
fer the unemployed to fields of permanent industry. 
Repeated temporary relief damages self-respect, 
habituates a sense of dependence, and enervates 
the power of self-support. Benevolent associations 
and individuals realize the importance of such 
efforts, but find difficulty in obtaining information, 
as to prospective obstacles, which will warrant the 
transfer of homes to strange regions. 

It is impossible for a family or an individual to 
remove to a distance without expenditure for travel 
and temporary subsistence. In many cases kin- 
dred, churches or charitable societies would con- 
tribute toward the expense, but questions arise : 
Where ? with whom ? for what pursuits ? with what 
co-operative assistance? what promise of success? 
In uncertainty on these points, for lack of a bureau 
of reliable information and organized to impart it, 
those who would aid others dare not exercise a 
prevailing influence on such an important decision. 

These considerations illustrate the expediency 
of an organization which shall aid by counsel and 
capital those who desire to become cultivators of 
the soil. Such boards of aid would be beneficent 
agencies in our chief cities and factors of national 



48 THE HARD TIMES. 

prosperity. They should compile information from 
authentic sources concerning localities advanta- 
geous for settlement ; the conditions of purchase 
from government, by railroad warrants or from 
private parties. They should obtain data upon the 
fertility, adaptation to special products, prevalent 
diseases, meteorology, facilities for transportation, 
materials for building, supply of tools, means of 
sustenance until harvest, proximity to markets, 
etc., etc., of the regions recommended to emigra- 
tion. They should devise plans for the settlement 
of extensive tracts, under superintendence, by 
numbers sufficient for mutual aid and protection ; 
the use of labor-saving machinery, the co-operation 
of railroad companies, — all on sufficient scale to 
attract population of future towns and cities, cen- 
tres of trade and mechanic arts, ensuring, not only 
greater gains by division of labor, but facilities for 
education, social and religious culture, which 
develop proportionally with population. 

It may be said that such inducements to emigra- 
tion are posted in our streets, advertised in the 
press, scattered in hand-bills, proclaimed at fairs, 
until the advice, "Go West, young man /"has 
become a byword. The young man stays at 
home. Because this abounding information is 
tainted by self-interest. It is the talk of the seller 
under the bias of his profit. His railroads are all 
air-lines. His lands border on Paradise and are 
exempt from all ills of the flesh. His lodes are all 



THE HARD TIMES. 49 

bonanzas, and his prospective harvests fabulous. 
Hence, misgivings and hesitancy in response to 
these temptations. 

The boards of aid proposed must be under man- 
agement that would command public confidence in 
their aid for the common good. They must be 
ready to offer their facilities to those who would 
raise market truck in Maryland, cotton and sugar 
in the South, the orange or banana in Florida, 
wheat or corn on the prairies, stock herds in Texas 
or the plains of Kansas, the grape, olive or fig in 
California, according to the respective preferences, 
numbers in company, ties of kindred, physical 
ability and command of means. If they had not 
locations under their special superintendence in all 
these sections, they could be in such correspond- 
ence with other bureaus as to be of service to 
parties by their introductions. Hundreds of care- 
worn men, filled with dread of the future, count- 
ing to themselves no friends, charging the world 
with indifference to their fate, though greedy of 
their last dollar, walk gloomily the streets of our 
cities, who would welcome such friendly advice 
and assistance. 

For effective service these boards must command 
or influence capital and induce associate emigration 
in considerable numbers. Individual pioneer life 
succeeds only by unusual courage, physical vigor, 
tact, perseverance. It is constantly attempted 
without forethought of difficulties or contingencies. 



50 THE HARD TIMES. 

Tales of disappointment are frequent of those who 
have impulsively hastened to the West as to an El 
Dorado, without means, friends, or definite pur- 
poses — upon a rambling hunt for " something to 
do," until their means are exhausted, and they are 
returned through the pity and at the charges of 
friends at home. These failures should occasion 
no surprise. That a stranger in Chicago or San 
Francisco, or on the highways of the West, through 
which roves a tide of aimless, discomfited, incapaci- 
tated humanity, in search of riches, — they know 
not w T hence, — that such should find himself re-' 
jected and dejected can be no w r onder. Western 
emigration has been a marvel of energy and endur- 
ance, overcoming all obstacles, and planting in a 
wilderness towns, cities and States in a single gen- 
eration. The men who accomplished such results 
did not, and others like them will not, need the 
helping-hand of any organization. There are 
many, however, not gifted with self-reliance and 
ability for unaided pioneer life ; but, from advice, 
companionship and slight financial assistance, w r ould 
receive an impulse of hopefulness that would de- 
velop energy and ensure success. 

We wrll here consider brief! v, in view of the 
importance and wide relations of the subject, the 
necessity of capital for advantageous settlement 
and improvement of territory ; also the basis of 
its security and the promise of its earnings. Sug- 
gestions as to methods of associate or organized 



THE HAKD TIMES. 51 

emigration from examples in the history of the 
"Western States, as also concerning ways and means 
of safely intrusting it with capital, will be next 
considered. 

The lack of means wherewith to go, and whereby 
to live upon first arrival, is the only inseparable 
obstacle to many who would make a distant depart- 
ure for a livelihood. Men who have not a dollar 
beyond daily wants ; others who must not jeopard- 
ize the last of their savings for fear of utter im- 
poverishment of their families, or should leave 
means for their support until the shelter of a new 
home is established — these say so frequently and 
conclusively, n I have nothing ta go with" that it is 
anticipated as the usual response to the suggestion. 
Men cannot prudently enter a strange land without 
money or supplies. Unless assured of subsistence, 
anxiety will impair their powers and disqualify 
them for effort. Besides food and shelter, seed, 
tools, etc., are required. If, by association, they 
can obtain labor-saving machinery — a steam-mill, 
plough, mower and reaper — the product of their 
labor will be proportionately enhanced. 

These propositions are too self-evident to need 
argument or illustration. But capital must be con- 
vinced of its profits before it incurs risk. It is 
now more than ever timid and shy of venture. 
It has been upon the rampage. Its remnant is 
in hiding-places for security. Philanthropy will 



52 THE HARD TIMES. 

vainly summon it forth until it assures a return 
with interest. 

The enterprise advocated is the transfer of 
idle capital at the East to occupied lands at the 
West ; the title of the lands, as will be shown 
hereafter, to remain with the capitalist, while the 
occupants enhance their value by labor until after 
payment in full of purchase-money. Vast sums 
have been loaned by the East to the West upon the 
security of its territories. The earnings of whale- 
men in Arctic seas, of trade in the Indies, of ton- 
nage in the inland waters of China, have sought 
final security in mortgages that underlie Chicago, 
or bonds of Security Companies upon Western 
farms. The basis of safety here proposed is sub- 
stantially the latter, — namely, occupied and im- 
proved lands. The only difference is that popula- 
tion and culture move simultaneously upon the soil, 
instead of having been previously established ; but 
the money to be advanced is proportionately small, 
according as the land is undeveloped. Such enter- 
prise is not without successful precedent. 

The Mormons (preposterous people though they 
are !) have peopled a desolate region from foreign 
lands upon precisely the method here suggested ; 
in fact, borrowed from their established practice. 
Four companies, a total of two thousand souls, 
arrive from Europe in New York the present sea- 
son. What is the financial modus operandi by 
which the population of a town is brought across 



THE HARD TIMES. 53 

seas, conveyed two thousand miles inland, and 
added to that wealth-producing sect ? Simply that 
above described. 

By fortuitous coincidence ( ?) Mormons are able- 
bodied men. They may be penniless, but are 
surely fit for work. They are transferred from 
England or Norway to Utah, assigned a portion of 
land, bonded on credit; all expenses of travel 
incurred, all charges meanwhile for support and 
supplies, with the value of the land, being debited 
on account to the individual. When this indebted- 
ness with interest is liquidated by harvests, they 
become owners of their land, are advanced to a 
place in creation they had never imagined, and 
henceforth believe in the revelations of a good 
farm and the prophet. Whatever may be the in- 
fluence of polygamy, it is plain that the system 
must be based upon practical provision for the 
maintenance of one or a score of families. The 
success of their utilitarian measures demonstrates 
not only their wisdom, but the substantial basis of 
security for advances made across the Atlantic ; 
namely, lands to be improved by labor transferred 
thereto by capital. 

Property consists mainly of land and capital. 
Land is real estate ; because, as defined by Black- 
stone, "it comprehends all things of permanent, 
substantial, fixed, immovable nature." The Di- 
vinely appointed provisions of the Jewish theoc- 
racy, by which land was to be inalienable (Le- 



54 THE HARD TIMES. 

viticus xxv. 23), illustrate its precedence in all 
ages above all other property. It is impressive to 
observe in this connection that while houses in 
"walled cities of the Jews — the work of men's 
hands, perishable by time — could not be redeemed 
by the year of jubilee, it returned to children the 
lands of their fathers. It is an ancient belief, vin- 
dicated through the ages, that capital is most secure 
upon land improved by labor. So far as it is 
divorced from land, so far it is endangered. 

The accumulating capital of Great Britain, timid 
from misadventures, seeks preservation in lands, 
almost regardless of income. Two per cent, re- 
turn from real estate will find its purchaser in 
preference to larger gains possible from trade and 
commerce. The desert 'moors of Norway and 
Scotland, yielding but small rent as pasture, are 
firmly held and alienated only under dire necessity. 
Land yields increase for labor. The warehouse 
furnishes shelter for trade, which involves unpro- 
ductive labor. At the collapse or cessation of 
trade, the labor it employs and the warehouse it 
occupies gain nought from other labor and produce 
nought of themselves. Hence the shrinkage of 
value, sudden and severe, of commercial real estate 
in hard times. 

It is this sense of permanent security and per- 
petual resource that gives to the poor man the 
yearning for ownership of soil. The late disas- 
trous lessons of the uncertainty of all personal, 



THE HARD TIMES. 55 

i. e. movable, property, must increase the convic- 
tion in this country of the substantial value of its 
productive lands. Warehouses and dwellings in 
cities and towns have declined one-half in value. 
Tenement property is largely vacated. Factories 
with their thousands of spindles are to-day worth- 
less as a gift, if the 'recipient must run them. 

Meanwhile, the farms of the land — God's food 
factories, for which He supplies power and raw 
material, asking man only to combine them — have 
not staved their dividends. Vermont and New 
Hampshire, the valleys of the Mohawk and Shen- 
andoah, the shores of the Chesapeake and the 
plains of the West have not known the hard times 
of Broadway, State Street and Lowell. Country 
homesteads abandoned by sons and daughters for 
the chances of money-getting and the gayeties of 
city life have been retreats for themselves and their 
children ; the old orchard, corn-field, potato patch 
and dairy affording them welcome sustenance. 

Farmers are to-day almost the only class of buy- 
ers with their income, instead of buyers with the 
principal, of past savings, reaping doubly an advan- 
tage from the hard times in Europe and America ; 
for they receive advanced prices on their products 
and buy at reduction all articles of consumption. 
If gain above outlay is reliable basis of credit, 
other qualifications being answered, farmers to-day 
are the safest debtors. 

The creation of an export demand for manufact- 



56 THE HARD TIMES. 

ures is debated as a possible relief of the paralysis 
upon trade and the means of supporting produc- 
tion. At best, it must be a slow process of recov- 
ery with the odds of capital and skill against us. 
The woollen manufacturers at their late meeting, 
generally expressed the opinion c ' that it was im- 
possible at present to contend in the markets of 
the world with the cheap labor and low rates of 
interest in Europe." But, despite cheap labor and 
low interest abroad, American farmers are to-day 
heavy exporters. They can withstand all compe- 
tition, for nature is on their side. They can pro- 
duce wheat at less cost than the most scientific 
farmer of the Old World, even though the latter 
had land given to him. They freight the weekly 
fleet of steamships from the Atlantic ports with 
meat and grain from the prairies ; the products of 
their dairies and orchards. It is difficult to con- 
ceive the tide of wealth returned to our shores 
from statements like the annexed, so familiar as to 
pass unnoticed : — 

New York, Oct. 13, 1877. — Eight steamships sail for 
Europe to-day, taking 297,000 bushels of grain, 4,t)00 bales 
of cotton, 2,900 boxes of bacon, 21,000 boxes of cheese, 2,000 
tierces of lard, 4,900 packages of butter, 1,500 barrels of 
apples, 1,500 bales of hops, 9,000 barrels of flour, 4,500 cases 
of canned meats, 1,600 quarters of fresh beef, 70 tons of do., 
415 tierces of beef, 859 hogsheads, 27 tierces, 1,725 cases and 
411 ceroons of tobacco, and large quantities of clover and 
grass seeds. 



THE HAKD TIMES. 57 

A cablegram of two lines, lost to public recog- 
nition in the details of the latest defalcations, or 
political conventions, reveals the reflex influence of 
this commerce : — 

FOREIGN COMMERCIAL NEWS. 

London, Oct. 3. — One hundred and seventy thousand 
pounds of the £500,000 withdrawn to-day was for New 
York. 

The Bank of England has advanced its dividend rate from 
3 to 4 per cent., in view of the continued drain of bullion. 

London, Oct. 4. — The bullion in the bank decreased 
£808,000 during the week. 

Paris, Oct. 4. — Specie in the Bank of France decreased 
19,500,000 francs during the week. 

It has been by the labor of the yeomanry of the 
country that the debit account to foreign countries 
for the luxuries of cities has been balanced and 
gold reduced to 2 J per cent, premium. 

This ao-ore^ation of natural wealth from agricult- 
ure was never before in such marked progress and 
development. Egypt was said to be the granary 
of the ancient world, but, from present indications, 
America is to be the granary, pasture and orchard, 
for the supply of deficiencies in Europe. Within a 
few years it has been made apparent that the West- 
ern plains are to be a main resource for meat, tal- 
low and hides for Europe. Refrigerator-tanks will 
soon add poultry as a staple for export, and the very 
recent increase of shipments of dry and canned 
fruits, promises that the luscious harvests from 
3* 



58 THE HARD TIMES. 

6,000,000 peach-trees in Delaware and the eastern 
shore of Maryland, will not hereafter go to waste. 
The shipments during a late fortnight from New 
York, covered 28,000 cases of canned goods. The 
"Pall Mall Budget" said recently, that "Europe 
and Australia will take nearly all the fruit, fresh 
and dried (dried peaches excepted), which the 
United States can land in their markets in good 
condition. As long as dried apples can be ex- 
ported from New York at five or even seven cents 
a pound, the workingmen of Europe and Australia 
will buy all that can be spared." In eleven months 
ending July 1, the fruit exported amounted in value 
to $2,831,000. 

The late address of Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, 
President of the American Pomological Society, 
exhibits the increasing importance of the fruit pro- 
duction of the United States, both as a luxury of 
home consumption, and a staple product of export. 
The facts stated have such direct relation to the 
topic of these papers, that it is difficult to limit our 
use of them. 

" In 1848, the cultivation of fruits for market, or for ex- 
portation, was limited to a few of the older States. But now 
steamers from New York take, in the autumn, from 500 to 
3,000 barrels of apples weekly. The increase in the crop of 
apples in New York and the more western States, is wonder- 
ful. From New York, it is estimated that, in abundant years, 
1,500,000 barrels are exported. 

" As the refrigerating process becomes more perfect, it will 
aid largely the exportation of apples and the more delicate 



THE HARD TIMES. 59 

fruits. Pease, peaches and grapes have been sent to England 
in good order, and it is confidently expected that American 
peaches will soon be well known in the markets of England. 
England esteems American apples above all others. 

"The following are a few illustrations of the immense 
quantities of fruits now sent to market : — 

" Of strawberries there have been received in one day in 
New York, 10,000 bushels. In 1875, on the peninsula of 
Delaware and Maryland, the peach crop was estimated at 
above 7,000,000 baskets. From California there were sent 
East, in 1876, 130,000 bushels of assorted fruit. Of the straw- 
berry, it was estimated that San Jose and vicinity supplied* 
some days, for home consumption, forty tons. In Illinois 
very little fruit was raised, except for home use, until 1840. 
Now there are 320,000 acres of orchards in that State. Flor- 
ida and Mississippi give promise of a great increase in culti- 
vation of tropical fruits. It has long been known that the 
climate of Florida was well suited to the orange ; but the 
last few years have demonstrated that many other tropical 
fruits can be grown as profitably. 

" There is a large and increasing consumption of Florida 
oranges in Northern cities. Limes, shaddocks and lemons 
have increased attention, while pine- apples have been very 
successful. The date begins to thrive in Georgia, and will, 
doubtless, erelong, be extensively cultivated. California now 
raises 7,000,000 oranges annually. 

. " Much of our progress in pomology and horticulture is 
due to the increase of facilities for transportation. But these 
would have been of but little advantage had they not been 
supplemented by careful packing. Steamers and cars are 
now provided with large refrigerators, by which delicate 
fruits can be sent long distances, even to Europe. The vari- 
ous styles of fruit packages are wonders of cheapness and 
efficiency. Trees shipped to Australia by Ellwanger & 
Barry, after a voyage of 153 days, were received in safe con- 
dition. Only 3 out of 160 were dead. 

" The canning process has been brought to great perfec- 



60 THE HARD TIMES. 

tion; and that of drying promises to become even more 
useful, as it reduces weight in transportation three-fourths, 
by removal of water, and renders fruit capable of shipment 
to all climes, and of preservation for years. Six canning 
firms in California employ 2,000 hands. 

" We need have no fear of an overstock of fruit, as many 
new ways will, doubtless, be devised for its use. 

" Figs and grapes are being extensively dried in California. 
The quantity of raisins already produced annually is esti- 
mated at 400,000 pounds. It is believed, that with further 
experience, they will be produced of the highest excellence. 

" The foreign market for our fruits is now as well estab- 
lished as that for wheat. Competent judges unite in opinion 
that the European and Australian markets are prepared to 
take increasing quantities of fresh and dried fruits, if landed 
in good condition. Australia and Germany will consume 
immense quantities of dried fruits ; but England prefers it in 
fresh condition." 

The annexed statement shows that the export of 
produce increases more rapidly than the area of 
improved lands, which in the decade 1860-70 was 
but 25 per cent. Although the crops last year 
were a partial failure, the excess in quantity of 
farm products exported to June 30, 1877, exceeded 
that during the previous twelve months by per- 
centages varying from 20 per cent, to 100 percent. 
In round numbers, exports of ten leading articles, 
not cereals, and their increase above 1876, were : — 



t 



THE HAED TIMES, 



61 



1877. 



Increase above 
1§76. 



Fruits, . 

Hops, . 

Bacon and hams, . 

Animals, 

Butter, . 

Lard, . 

Pork, . 

Seeds, . 

Tobacco, 

Tallow, 



$3,000,000 
2,000,000 

50,000,000 
3,000,000 
4,000,000 

26,000,000 
7,000.000 
3,000,000 

29,000,000 
8,000,000 



$135,000,000 



$2,000,000 
1,000,000 

10,000,000 
1,000,000 
3,000,000 
4,000,000 
1,000,000 
2,000,000 
6,000,000 
1,000,000 



$31,000,000 



The disparity between the export of agricultural 
produce and that of manufactures will indicate the 
small account of the latter toward maintaining the 
balance of trade with foreign* countries. Of seven 
principal lines of manufactures, excepting those 
which are principally natural products, as petro- 
leum, copper, furs, etc., all that exceed $1,000,000, 
viz., agricultural implements, clocks, all manufact- 
ures of iron and steel, of leather and of cotton, 
sewing-machines and ordnance, aggregate only 
$41,000,000. 

Increase of population is the standard indication 
of political economy for the increase of natural 
wealth. By this test it will be found that pro- 
ductive agricultural lands, when occupied, offer 
security for capital that is steadily enhancing in 
value. Commercial revulsions tend to their ad- 



62 THE HARD TIMES. 

vantage rather than their injury ; for population 
then withdraws to them for support from cities and 
manufacturing districts. From this cause the cen- 
tre of population is now moving westward with 
unprecedented rapidity. Take Kansas for a single 
illustration : — 

In 1860 it had of improved lands, 405,468 acres. 
1875 " " " 4,343,433 " 

1860 it produced of corn, 6,150,727 bushels. 

1875 " " 80,798,723 

1860 it had 93,465 head of cattle. 
1875 " 703,323 _" 
1860 " 8,601 population. 

1875 " 531,156 

These results, of incalculable advantage to the 
whole country, are largely attributable to the late 
land-grant railroad policy. Despite a mercenary 
bias charged upon its projectors (and who would 
or should have assumed such great enterprise with- 
out promise of reward?), the nation has literally 
reaped magnificent harvests in return. The devel- 
opment of national wealth thereby is only at its 
beginning. What has been lost by it is difficult to 
detect. Alternate sections of land withheld are 
doubled in price, $2.50 instead of $1.25 for prox- 
imity to railroads ; and vast regions are opened to 
market that would have remained desolate. 

What an empire in promise, when it is considered 
that the State which has attracted this emigration 
has an area equal to Ohio, Indiana, Delaware and 
Connecticut combined ! 

According to Adam Smith, countries are popu- 



THE HARD TIMES. 63 

lous, not according to the supply of food and 
clothing, but the supply of food. This principle 
guarantees a continuous flow of population into 
those States abounding with means of subsistence. 
Cotton was king, but his abdication approaches 
before the bread-and-meat confederacy, which now 
sends 1,000 car-loads of wheat per day into Chicago, 
and will ship to the Old World its surplus for the 
year of 140,000,000 bushels. 

To the above arguments for' the diversion of 
population from large cities on the seaboard, a 
landlord or manufacturer may object that it is pro- 
posed to deplete the East of tenants and opera- 
tives. But an impoverished, non-producing popu- 
lation, not paying rent and tending to pauperism, 
is of no benefit to capital or real estate. This 
question has been thoroughly debated in Great 
Britain, and settled with the intelligence that marks 
her legislation. It has been decided that " emigra- 
tion of capital and labor has always increased both 
population and wealth at home. When a Hamp- 
shire peasant emigrates to Australia, he very likely 
enables an operative to live in Lancashire. Besides 
making food for himself, he sends more home for 
the manufacturer, who, in turn, makes clothes and 
implements for the colonists."* 

In a debate in the House of Commons on this 
subject in 1843, the liberal policy of the nation 
with reference to it was fully vindicated. Said the 

* E. Gibbon Wakefield; The Art of Colonization for the British 
Empire. 



64 THE HARD TIMES. 

President of the poor-law commission : " When 1 
ask you to colonize, what is it but to carry the 
superfluity of one part of our country to the defi- 
ciency of the other? To cultivate the desert by 
means that are idle here? In one simple word, to 
convey the plough to the field, the workman to his 
work, the hungry to his food ? .... I direct your 
attention to the United States, the greatest colony 
the world ever saw, but by no means the only 
proof of the immense extension given to trade by 
planting settlers on new and ample fields. What 
would have been the wealth and population of this 
country had the United States never been peopled ? 
I think it will be admitted that, taking the United 
Kingdom and the United States alone, the fact of 
colonizing that single country has at least doubled 
the numbers and wealth of the English race." f 

Said John Stuart Mill : " There need be no 
hesitation in affirming that colonization, in the 
present state of the world, is the very best affair 
of business in which the capital of an old and 
wealthy country can possibly engage." No w old 
and wealthy country" ever planted its colonies 
under such favorable auspices as now invite the 
American people to similar enterprise as their 
"best affair of business." 

Surplus land awaits surplus labor, while surplus 
capital needs their employment, and foreign nations 
demand surplus production. 

t Charles Buller, Esq., M. P., debate on Systematic Colonization. 



THE HARD TIMES, 65 



No. IV. 

American Migration. Successful Colonizations of 
Anaheim, Cal. ; Vineland, N. J. ; Greeley, Col. 
Inducements for Capital in' Agriculture. Chances 
of Success in Trade. Boards of Aid to Land- 
ownership. 

What has been done may be done — essential con- 
ditions being unchanged. 

What has been done may be better done — when 
essential conditions are improved, besides the gain 
of experience, and the stimulus of successful ex- 
ample. 

The favorable conditions of the latter proposition 
are with the enterprise herein advocated ; viz., aid 
for honest, capable, and industrious unemployed to 
independent ownership and culture of homesteads 
on fertile lands. 

If the American people have developed any spe- 
cial genius, it has been for migration and the sub- 
jection of waste territory to civilized development. 
For a century after the discovery of America, its 
wilds were undisturbed. Simultaneously, as though 
by Divine impulsion for the birth of a new nation, 
the Puritan, the Dutchman, the Quaker, and the 



66 THE HARD TIMES. 

Cavalier planted their churches and trading-posts 
along its coast. The enterprise of these pioneers, 
inherited by their posterity, was not content with 
commonwealths limited to the shores of a conti- 
nent. Immediately upon the peace which united 
them as a republic, native courage, disciplined by 
war, stimulated fresh adventure. During the suc- 
ceeding half century, explorers ranged the wilder- 
ness, elate in the freedom they had won ; as indif- 
ferent to a fight with savages as to a hunt for game. 
The settlement of the central section of the Amer- 
ican Continent, in the rapidity and strength of its 
progress, is a marvel of history. 

The ordinance of 1787 constituted the entire 
public domain, north of the Ohio River, as the 
Northwest Territory, under a single government. 
It was rapidly divided into States. In 1810, Illi- 
nois (then comprising the present States of Min- 
nesota and Wisconsin) contained 12,000 population. 
In five years — from 1850-55 — it added 450,000. 
In 1860 not a single acre of land within its bounda- 
ries belonged to the general government. 

Our late civil war was followed by like eager- 
ness in the Middle States for fresh fields to con- 
quer, with results proportionate to increased facil- 
ities. Foreign emigration, from existing adverse 
influences, is stationary. To 1860 it had brought, 
including children of foreign parentage, 7,000,000 
souls to the United States. They went principally 
to the banks of the Mississippi, meeting an out- 



THE HAED TIMES. 67 

flow from New England. Successful pioneership 
wakened enthusiasm, and it is again on the march. 

The West, which, at the beginning of the cen- 
tury, was in the valley of the Mohawk, moved to 
that of the Ohio, then of the Mississippi. It is 
now in the plain at the base of the Eocky Moun- 
tains, and over them on the Pacific. The genera- 
tion born in Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois furnishes 
the largest detachments of this new army of occu- 
pation. To 1873, of 1,445 purchasers of land in 
Kansas, 1,165 were from the section between Ohio 
and Iowa. Texas is receiving its largest accessions 
from Michigan and Illinois. 

These facts demonstrate, either that these peo- 
ple, the best judges of new lands, move upon them 
in expectation of larger gains than from present 
locations ; or else, realizing on their first proper- 
ties, they go to repeat their profits on a larger 
scale. Doubtless the threatened invasion of slav- 
ery repelled the incoming of free labor to those 
fertile regions ; but their choice by the best judges 
is the strongest indorsement of their value. 

The prosperity which has rewarded this emigra- 
tion is now an essential element in the commercial 
exchanges of the world. 

What has been the method of this movement? 
It has been mostly without method ; the force of 
individual self-reliance and energy. Its experi- 
ences will not furnish romance to history like those 
of Myles Standish at Plymouth, or Daniel Boone in 



68 THE HARD TIMES. 

Kentucky. The emigrants' train now offshoots from 
the track of the railroad. Law and order precede 
their coming, and have appropriated the first sur- 
veys to school-sites for the education of their chil- 
dren. To move to Arkansas or California, with 
populations equal to that of Massachusetts in 1820, 
with State governments, railroads, telegraph, postal 
facilities, and all essentials of comfort available, — 
such migration, compared with the hardships of 
men who first hewed their course through forests 
to the Mississippi, — is a pastime. 

Yet statistics of late Western emigration show 
the disposition of people in older States to live in 
commercial and manufacturing places. While Illi- 
nois furnished 752 buyers of land in Kansas, Penn- 
sylvania sent but 38, New York but 33, Massachu- 
setts 34, Ehode Island 3, Connecticut 1. These 
figures (to 1873) have probably been changed by 
the results of the panic, but they prove the hesi- 
tancy of those who would be most benefited by 
a transfer of their labor to attempt it. They 
require counsel to induce them to better their 
estate. Unfitted for isolated removal, distrustful 
of failure, they must have the aid of an organiza- 
tion that will help them soon to help themselves. 

The first desideratum, therefore, is associate 
migration. Not communism, which is repulsive 
to American habits. Foreigners, used to being 
much governed, submit to socialistic regulations. 
Swedes, Poles, Swiss, and Mennonites maintain 



THE HAED TIMES. 69 

organizations formed at their starting-point, and 
prosper under them. The following are in- 
stances : — 

" A Swiss colony settled on Cumberland Moun- 
tain, Tennessee, in 1873. This colony of 115 
families, about 700 people, purchased 10,000 acres 
of mountain land at $1 per acre, and now, in four 
years, each head of a family has a comfortable 
home, an orchard and garden with a profusion of 
mountain flowers. There is a large store that is 
managed for the colony, # members of which get 
goods at wholesale cost ; the colony has its own 
school, church, doctors, etc., and their own candi- 
dates govern. The colonists already have dairies 
and cheese factories in successful operation, and 
their products find ready sale at fancy prices. 
They Have splendid herds of cattle, and their barns 
are built as carefully as their houses. There is 
also a colony of Swiss near Greenville, S. C, 
about as large as the Tennessee colony, and it is 
prospering finely." * 

The mixed population from an American city 
would not be content with "its" church, nor could 
a store be managed for them on joint account for 
any length of time. With Louis XIV., they have 
too much the consciousness, "I am the state," to 
be regulated overmuch in ordinary affairs. While 
prosperous settlements have proved the importance 
of numbers, they have shown the necessity of 

* Atlanta, Ga., Constitutionalist. 



70 THE HAKD TIMES. 

leaving them free of general control over their 
individual pursuits. 

From the annexed sketches of three successful 
colonizations, we argue that what has been done 
may now be better and more speedily done ; for 
they reveal no advantages not now available, while 
conditions in many respects are much more favor- 
able, and the pressure of the times compel many 
to a new departure for a subsistence or any hope 
of future competence. 

ANAHEIM, LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. 

This colony, but one of several in California, 
has demonstrated what may be gained by fifty poor 
men appropriating a portion of their wages to 
agricultural investment. In three years they were 
masters of themselves and of future maintenance, 
with attractive surroundings and pursuits. It is a 
precedent for the relief of the unemployed by the 
loan of capital, either for support while they plant 
fruits for yield in subsequent years, or for the 
division of their culture, in part to garden products 
for immediate subsistence, and in part to orchards 
and vineyards for the future. It is a model for 
imitation by men with means, say of $500 each, 
with assurance of large reward. Facts equally 
convincing are at hand, proving that the same 
shrewdness and industry will yield as richly in 
fruits in Florida or cattle-raising on the Western 
plains. 



THE HARD TIMES. 71 

In 1857, fifty poor Germans, all mechanics, 
employed in San Francisco in clivers trades, bought 
1,165 acres of land in Los Angeles County at $2 
per acre. They employed a competent overseer 
of their project. The land was divided into 50 
tracts of 20 acres each, with 50 village lots in the 
centre. They paid $50 each toward the cost of the 
property. Fourteen lots were set aside for school- 
houses and public buildings. The superintendent 
employed Spaniards and Indians to fence, plant 
and irrigate the land, digging a ditch seven miles 
long to the Santa Anna River, with subsidiary 
ditches to lead water into each twenty-acre lot. 
On each farm he planted % 8,000 vines, covering 
eight acres ; also fruit trees and willows for fencing, 
five miles on outside and thirty-five miles on interior 
lines. The latter grow so rapidly that in two years 
they afford sufficient firewood. All this was paid 
for in monthly instalments by the members, work- 
ing meanwhile at their trades. 

At the end of three years the proprietors took 
possession, with the vines in bearing. Each mem- 
ber had then paid in about $1,200, or $8 per week 
saved from wasres then to be had in San Francisco. 
Some were aided by friends. At the division the 
lots were appraised from $600 to $1,400, and dis- 
tributed by lot ; those who received one at less than 
$1,200 being paid the difference from receipts 
above that sum for those most valuable. At this 
time money could readily be hired on the property. 



72 THE HARD TIMES. 

Then the effects of the company were sold — 
horses, tools, etc., giving a final dividend of $100 
to each member. The proprietors proceeded to 
build their homes, buying lumber at wholesale. 
A schoolhouse was built, shops were attracted, 
mechanics moved to the town, and quickly all con- 
veniences were supplied. They were still poor, and 
paid two to three per cent, a month for money ; 
were for some years in debt, but always had 
enough to eat ; good schools for their children ; 
"were their own men," and independent.of all em- 
ployers. " We had music and dancing," said one 
to Mr. Nordhoff (from whose interesting work this 
is an abstract) , " and though we were very poor, 
I look back to those days as the happiest in my 
life." 

The entire company cleared themselves of debt. 
Not a proprietor had to that date (1872) been sold 
out under sheriff's writ, and only one of the orig- 
inal list had left the place. They have no poor. 
Their gardens yield vegetables and small fruits the 
year round. The vineyards clear an annual income 
of $600 to $700 each over all expenses of living. 
Property which cost $1,080 is worth from $5,000 
to $10,000. There is no drunkenness among them, 
and they live in plenty. 

Any sensible American, says Mr. Nordhoff, can 
imitate this example. Granted a man sufficiently 
wise and honest, and there needs only moderate 
patience, perseverance and economy in the body 



THE HAKD TIMES. 73 

of the company to ensure success. He recom- 
mends forty acres in quantity for each proprietor, 
and the planting of some olives, lemons, almonds 
and oranges, and sees no reason why there may 
not be an hundred repetitions of Anaheim in the 
State, when the Southern Pacific Railroad has 
opened 3,000,000 acres of similar lands in the San 
Joaquin valley, offering government lands for 
nothing under the homestead act, or railroad lands 
on five years' credit in sections of 640 acres. He 
adds clear and sensible instructions for those who 
would repeat the experiment and improve upon 
it. 

Major Truman's report, in his book on Semi- 
tropical California, is two years later, and not less 
fascinating in its account of the transformation of 
" a cactus and sage-brush patch " to fifty odd vine- 
yards, with attached gardens and orchards. " To- 
day the green lanes, bordered by the willow, Cot- 
tonwood, and sycamore, cannot be excelled for 
beauty in Merry England." In the centre of the 
town is an avenue of poplars, eight to fifteen inches 
in diameter, and sixty to seventy feet high, — the 
growth of eight years. By many of the proprie- 
tors the vineyard of eight acres has been increased 
to fifteen and eighteen acres. The average product 
is 750,000 gallons of wine. A tract of twenty 
acres, which cost originally $40, sold in 1876 for 
$6,000. Each house boasts its flower-garden and 
grass-plat. There is a Presbyterian and a Catholic 

4 



74 THE HARD TIMES. 

church ; a Masonic hall costing $4,000 ; an Odd 
Fellows' hall costing $9,000 ; two hotels and a pub- 
lic hall. The town has spread from 1,165 acres to 
3,200 acres, and within its limits produces every- 
thing essential to support life. Meteorological 
tables show its climate to be more salubrious than 
Nice, Mentone, or Aiken, S. C. In the vicinity of 
Anaheim, land in large tracts is worth $35 to $25 
per acre, and in smaller $40 to $60. 

Near Anaheim is the Westminster colony, formed 
by the Eev. L. P. Webbe, a Presbyterian clergy- 
man from New Jersey. He bought, in 1869, 7,000 
acres, and in 1874, not above 1,000 remained un- 
sold. 

VINELAND, NEW JERSEY. 

The national report on agriculture for 1869, says 
of Vineland, N. J. : M There can be no question 
that this colony of 10,000 people, gathered within 
ten years, as a settlement purely agricultural, has 
furnished an example in colonization which should 
not be ignored. It affords a striking example of 
the effect of population, of educational and social 
advantages, of associated improvement, in enhanc- 
ing values of real estate, and creating a market 
even amid a community of producers nearly homo- 
geneous." It furnishes a practical illustration of 
the adage, "In union there is strength." 

Previous to the opening of the West Jersey Eail- 
road the territory was a wilderness. In 1861, 



THE HARD TIMES. 75 

Charles K. Landis bought 16,000 acres, and subse- 
quently 14,000. He adopted the following princi- 
ples of settlement : — 

1. The sale of lands with stipulations of imme- 
diate improvements. 

2. Division into small farms of twenty to sixty 
acres, with convenient access to roads, and the 
encouragement of fruit-growing in connection with 
general farming. 

3. A system of public adornment, tending to 
still further aesthetic improvement as wealth and 
public taste improved. 

4. The prohibition of the sale of all intoxicating 
drinks as a beverage. 

5. The abolition of the system of fences, with a 
view to both beauty and economy. 

6. The establishment in the centre of the tract 
of a business city, which should be supported by 
manufactures and schools, and which should fur- 
nish, to a considerable extent, a home market for 
the surplus products of the suburbs. 

The first condition was designed to prevent the 
holding of land for speculative purposes, and to 
make each purchaser a contributor to the improve- 
ment of the whole settlement. The influx of pop- 
ulation would have been the signal for speculators 
to buy up large tracts. 

The second, dividing the land into small farms, 
was of essential importance toward the prosperous 
result. Small farms secure a dense population^ 



76 THE HARD TIMES. 

from which follows the highest development of 
social, mental and religious culture. These small 
properties, well developed, were sold by original 
settlers to men of larger means, of leisure and 
intelligence.* 

The third, securing public adornment, provided 
for a shady boulevard with side plats seeded to 
grass, nicely gravelled walks, bordered by hedges 
of Osage orange ; also, a public park of forty-five 
acres, and ten smaller squares. Houses were re- 
stricted to twenty-five and seventy-five feet from 
the street. 



* "All over the continent of Europe there is more live-stock kept, more 
capital owned, more produce and income yielded by small farms, than 
by large estates." 

"At the present day," says M. Hippolyte Passy (Memoirs de l'Acade- 
mie des Sciences, Morales et Politiques, dans la seance du Jan. 4, 1845), 
" on the same area, and under equal circumstances, the largest clear 
produce is yielded "by small farming, which, besides increasing the coun- 
try population, opens a safe market to the products of manufacturing 
industry." 

" The most costly agricultural machine, the locomotive thresher, is 
everywhere (hired or owned in common) among the small cultivators of 
Flanders." — Systems of Land Tenure in Various Countries. 

" Flemish agriculture has no rival, or at least no superior. . . . The 
farms are small, and generally i* the hands of small proprietors. . . . 
It was here that was developed the system of the rotation of crops, most 
precious discovery for the human race." — Economie Rurale de la France. 

American agriculturists of authority confirm these evidences of the 
advantage of thorough cultivation of small areas, by men in moderate 
circumstances. "A hankering after much land is a serious drawback to 
successful farming in the United States. We dig our gardens twenty 
inches deep and plough our fields Jive inches deep. We manure gardens 
well, but fields lightly . We cultivate a small patch of ground thoroughly, 
and scratch over a large space of land superficially. Large farms are a 
weariness to the flesh."— Frcedley. 



THE HAED TIMES. 77 

The fourth. Prohibition of intoxicating liquors 
was stated by Mr. Landis to the legislature of New 
Jersey to be the foundation-stone of the prosperity 
of the settlement. By it the money, health and 
industry of the people were conserved. 

The fifth. Abolition of fences was for both 
beauty and economy. It is estimated to have 
saved 160 miles of road fences both sides, at a cost 
of $200,000, and with the inner lines the outlay 
would have been $1,000,000.* 

From the speech of Mr. Landis, we have further 
evidence of the result : — 

" There is a material and industrial prosperity in Vineland 
unexampled in the history of colonization. With a popula- 
tion of 10,500, the police expenses in 1872 were $25, and the 
poor expenses f 350. The township ranks fourth in agri- 
cultural production in the State. Town lots that were sold 
for $150 have been resold for from $500 to $ 1,500, exclusive 
of improvements. Land that was sold at §25 per acre has 
been resold at from $200 to $500 per acre. This rule will 
hold good for miles of territory. In 1869, the 50,000 acres, 
which in 1860 could not have been sold for $4 per acre, were 
fairly worth $150 per acre, or $7,500,000. A stranger enter- 
ing Vineland would not dream, from the ease with which his 
wants are supplied, the resources of society, religious, liter- 
ary, musical, that every foot of the land he treads has been 
redeemed from a wilderness in eight years." 

* " Strange as it may seem, the greatest investment in this country is 
the common fences which divide fields from the highway and from each 
other. You will scarce believe me when I say that the fences in this 
country have cost more than twenty times the specie there is in it. [Said 
in times of specie /] In many counties of the Northern States the fences 
have cost more than the farms and fences are worth."— Burnap. 



78 THE HARD TIMES. 

Mr. S. R. Fowler, chairman of Vineland town- 
ship committee, writes October 22, 1877 : — 

" V. has met with remarkable success. . . . The vil- 
lage is quite compactly built up with numerous fine brick 
stores, a bank, churches of about all denominations, two of 
which cost about $30,000 each, a very fine high schoolhouse 
costing about $35,000, and 24 other school-houses scattered 
over the township. . . . The farming is principally con- 
fined to raising fruits. Grape-growing has received more 
attention than any other, thousands of tons being sent 
annually to the principal markets." 

It has 178 miles of the finest roads in the 
country. 

GREELEY, COLORADO, 

Is the most recent illustration of colonization upon 
a large scale. It was organized principally through 
the influence of the late Hon. Horace Greeley and 
the "New York Tribune." A call was made in its 
columns December 23, 1869. A locating commit- 
tee selected a site April, 1870, between Denver 
and Cheyenne. About 12,000 acres were bought 
of the railroad company and 2,000 from pre-empt- 
ors and squatters. The alternate sections belong- 
ing to the government were to be obtained under 
the homestead and pre-emption acts. A contract 
was made with the railroad company for 50,000 
more, running three years. 

The fee for membership was $150 each and $5 
for expenses. The total receipts were about 
$100,000 for 630 members. The land was divided 



THE HARD TIMES. 79 

as follows : A section of 640 acres — one side 
square — was laid off for a town in lots ranging 
from 25 to 200 feet front. Adjoining the town 
were lots of five, ten, twenty and forty acres, each 
appraised at $150, and open to the choice of 
members. Adjacent government tracts were con- 
trolled by rights of irrigation. So far the lots are 
regarded as about equally valuable, and cultivation 
is fairly distributed over the entire tract. 

Reduced rates of transportation were obtained, 
and early in May the colonists arrived in Colorado. 
The weather was cold; there being no houses, the 
failure of lumber to arrive according to contract 
caused considerable suffering. But after the first 
of June, when water flowed into the town and 
gardens were planted, the aspect of affairs rapidly 
improved. In nine months there were nearly 450 
houses, twenty stores, mechanics of all kinds, a 
weekly newspaper, and a population of at least one 
thousand souls. No liquor is sold in the place, nor 
is there a gambling establishment. Its success has 
followed from an organization which gave to the 
producer those profits which, under other con- 
ditions, are appropriated by speculators. 

The above is a brief abstract from an account of 
the settlement of Greeley in the agricultural report 
for 1870. 

Grace Greenwood wrote in 1872 : — * 

* New Life in New Lands. 



80 THE HARD TIMES. 

" Greeley is a really wonderful place. Established on a 
purely agricultural basis, with an inexhaustible capital of 
intelligence, energy, economy and industry, it has thriven 
constantly with no leaps of speculation or fever-heats of 
ambition and greed. Though it has had its hardships and 
discouragements, on the whole its experience has been ex- 
ceptionably happy. If I was astonished at the buildings, 
fields and gardens of this year-and-a-half old colony, I was 
more astonished at the sight of the colonists, as I beheld 
them one night gathered in the town hall ; good, solid, 
earnest men and women, and stalwart lads and blooming 
girls. The faces of the men showed that they took the great 
New York journal, and the fashions of the ladies that Har- 
per's ' Bazar' found its way to their homes. I believe in the 
colony system out here, and this is the only one I have 
yet visited. I am told that the Chicago Colorado colony at 
Longmont has a situation of unrivalled beauty, is in the best 
of hands, and e flourishes like a green bay tree.' The St. 
Louis colony, whose headquarters are at Evans, near Gree- 
ley, is also full of promise, agriculturally and morally. It 
is young, but after the success of Greeley and Longmont it 
has no doubtful experiment to try. It has not, however, 
followed a good example in adopting a temperance consti- 
tution." 

To these accounts of successful colonization 
upon definite plans from the outset is added an 
instance of individual philanthropy with parallel 
results. It proves our proposition, the basis for 
boards of aid; viz., that capital may be loaned 
with security and profit upon land for its cultiva- 
tion by honest and industrious men, aided by 
intelligent co-operation. 

The following statement is by a "respectable and 



THE HARD TIMES. 81 

prominent gentleman of Pittsburg, Penn.," in the 
"Advertiser" of the 27th of August :— 

" Some years ago I bought 640 acres of land in Indiana, 
and sold it to eight different men, who had little or no means 
(80 acres to each), dividing the payments into ten annual 
instalments, with ten per cent, annual interest. The result 
is, each man now has a good farm, worth from $3,000 to 
$5,000, living independent and useful citizens in the com- 
munity. Ten years ago I bought land in Iowa, and sold the 
same to men of little property, in tracts of 80 to 160 acres, 
dividing payments into ten equal parts, with interest at ten 
per cent, to be paid annually. Each purchaser now owns a 
good farm, worth from $4,000 to $8,000, living independent, 
with intelligent families growing up, and useful citizens, 

" A more safe and useful investment cannot be made by 
those having money to invest, if care is taken in the location 
and selection of land purchased, and in selling to men of 
industry and frugality. To have money invested where you 
get ten per cent, interest paid to you annually, and ten per 
cent, of the principal in addition, free of all taxation, is a 
desirable investment, when secure from loss by fire, bank- 
ruptcy or embezzlement, and aiding poor men to rise to inde- 
pendence. 

" Large amounts of money can be invested in this way with 
perfect security, and thousands of poor, worthy men placed in 
a prosperous condition, if rightly managed. I have seen, in 
good locations, millions of acres of good land that can be had 
at a low price. There need not be any paupers or tramps 
hunting work. If surplus capital and labor would rightly 
unite, they could make this Union the garden of the world. 

"Zadock Street." 

Details of the above and other successful coloni- 
zations, have suggested the following general plan 
for — 

4* 



82 THE HARD TIMES, 



BOARDS OF AID TO LAND-OWNERSHIP 

in large cities. The objects proposed are, first, to 
induce men of small means, and uncertain income 
from liability to lose employment, and whose chil- 
dren have prospect of a still harder struggle for a 
livelihood ; also able-bodied young men who eke 
out a pinched living on petty salaries, with no hope 
of means for marriage and future independence, — 
to induce these classes to withdraw from cities and 
to invest their savings and labor in arable land; 
second, to assist those whose only capital is their 
labor to land-ownership that will, with industry, 
ensure them competence. 

While the design of the board is philanthropic, 
it is not to be an organization depending on public 
or private bounty. Savings banks (despite occa- 
sional mismanagement) have been of the highest 
practical beneficence, although strictly business 
corporations, supporting their administration from 
their own operations ; giving all earnings above ex- 
penses to depositors, not stockholders ; gleaning 
petty fragments of capital from fields of industry, 
and placing them at security and income ; — thus 
the board proposed can organize an investment of 
labor lying waste, that shall earn its dividend in 
fertile lands. 

.The object of the board being as stated, it should 
be accomplished by the following — 



THE HARD TIMES. 83 



MEASURES : 

First. Obtain control of large tracts of agri- 
cultural land upon a credit of five years or more, 
with power to sell fractional parts thereof at inter- 
vals during the term, receiving and giving deeds 
for the same, upon payment of their value ; the 
land to be selected with due reference to its fer- 
tility, water, neighboring population, markets, 
transportation, etc., etc. In order to meet the 
preference for settlements of special climate or 
occupations, the board should prepare for them 
simultaneously in various sections : in Maryland or 
Virginia, of small areas for high culture of market 
produce and hardy fruits ; of large tracts in Flor- 
ida, for growth of vegetables for early spring 
market in Northern cities, and later of tropical 
fruits ; of broader fields for cereals and stock- 
raising in Kansas or Nebraska ; or, again, twenty- 
acre vineyards and orchards in Southern California. 

The tracts controlled to be laid out for towns 
with outlying farms, increasing in size according 
to distance from the centre ; equallizing their value 
by quantities. Each settler to receive a town lot 
with his farm, for sale or use at his pleasure. 

The size of the tract would depend upon the 
culture expedient. For fruit cultivation, 10,000 
to 15,000 acres would suffice for the early years ; 
but they should be adjacent to territory for expan- 
sion. While in Kansas or Nebraska, farms would 



84 THE HARD TIMES. 

require more extent for the cereals, the cost of a 
farm to support a family with surplus, would aver- 
age no more than in the Middle States, say from 
$200 to $300. Good lands in Maryland, of which 
twenty acres would be a large quantity for fruit- 
raising, can be had for from $10 to $25 per acre. 
The sales along the trunk railroads to the Pacific 
now average about $4.50 per acre. Government 
lands, and railroad grants of rich lands in Florida, 
can be had at $k25 and $2.50. 

In no department of its service would the board 
be more efficient than in the original purchase of 
land. Competition for towns under auspices and 
of the character proposed would secure most lib- 
eral terms. The announcement of this enterprise 
has already induced offers of land in various 
States, with such special inducements as show 
the ability of the board to buy 10,000 to 50,000 
acres of land upon terms of credit, and at prices 
impossible to private parties, the discount being 
more than sufficient to cover all expenses of its 
administration ; moreover, all the stipulations here- 
inafter suggested as desirable with the purchase of 
land being granted. 

Mr. S. E. Osgood,, secretary of the Union Relief 
Association of Springfield, Mass., writes, October 
24, 1877 :— 

"... I wrote to the governor of West Virginia, and 
received reply from his secretary, referring me to a large 
land-owner, who has since written me, that he, with other 



THE HARD TIMES. 85 

landholders representing an ownership of 500,000 acres of 
very rich land, would sell all or portions thereof at $2.50 per 
acre, with an abundance of all kinds of timber. ... I 
am also informed that desirable lands can be had at even less 
price." 

Reservations of plots should be made for public 
uses, — parks, schools, etc., — also for a loan fund 
and for a final dividend to original settlers, as will 
be explained. A system of arboriculture and re- 
strictions on building would also be covered in the 
original plan of the town and agreements with 
comers. A further important stipulation, which is 
believed to be practicable, should be made with the 
original purchase ; viz., — 

The sellers should agree to erect upon designated 
lots buildings suitable for the temporary accommo- 
dation of colonists, to be under the sole control of 
the board for five years, the lots remaining in own- 
ership of the sellers. When the buildings revert 
to them, the advance on the land would more than 
compensate for their use. 

This measure would prevent the exposure expe- 
rienced by the Greeley colony, and save time and 
care of the colonists on arrival, enabling them to 
proceed at once vigorously for crops. 

Reduced terms of transportation with railroads 
should be secured at the beginning. 

Second. The board to appoint a superintendent 
for each settlement, who shall supervise the build- 
ings occupied by colonists, which are for general 



86 THE HARD TIMES. 

use ; provide for their subsistence until they estab- 
lish a home, at rates to merely cover the cost, as 
established by the board. He is to have general 
•control over all supplies, tools, and property. He 
shall advise in the cultivation of the land, and have 
authority, by primary assent of the colonists, to 
enforce regulations for their moral and sanitary 
welfare. 

Third. Prohibition of all manufacture or a 
traffic in intoxicating liquors as beverages should 
be incorporated in all original deeds of land to 
settlers, as is inserted in every deed given for 
land in the town of Greeley ; providing for forfeit- 
ure in case of violation. 

Fourth. The board to publish from time to time 
information desirable for the public upon the advan- 
tages of land settlement; especially occasional bul- 
letins of the progress of colonies, and facts to induce 
those who would be most benefited thereby to with- 
draw from cities for land culture, leaving places and 
pursuits to be filled by men incapacitated for agri- 
culture, and by women dependent upon their labor 
for support. 

Fifth. To aid those well qualified for farming, 
but without means, the board would induce loans 
of small amounts, with security and prospective 
larger return, in the following manner : Let the 
party disposed to aid a colonist purchase a division 
of land, say eighty acres, with the town lot. Let 
him advance to the colonist the expense of trans- 



THE HARD TIMES. 87 

portation, and become responsible for his tempo- 
rary support, as for his seeds and essential supplies, 
and the use of labor-saving machines, if desirable, 
while he plants upon one-half of the tract ; the col- 
onist to hold a bond for a deed of it at cost, when 
he shall have paid for it, and for all advances, with 
interest at ten per cent. The lender, meanwhile, 
incurs no risk, for he merely pays for labor upon 
land which is in his own name. When the colonist 
has earned his title thereto, the adjacent forty acres, 
belonging to the lender, will be greatly enhanced in 
value, giving to him large reward for his philan- 
thropic use of money. A loan in this manner of 
$250 to a colonist for his support, but, in fact, in- 
vested in the lender's own land, repeated with the 
growth of the town, would be steadily enhancing 
the remainder of the lender's estate. Parties who 
could loan capital have within their kindred or ac- 
quaintance those worthy of such favor as honest, 
capable, and industrious. One thousand dollars, 
continuously invested, would probably establish 
four colonists upon their own land, each two or 
three years. 

Sixth. A loan fund, to be employed in the 
manner prescribed, should be obtained by the sale 
of lots reserved for the purpose ; to be cleared 
above the cost of the property by increasing the 
original appraisal at its division. 

Seventh. A final dividend to original settlers ; 
i. 6., those within a certain date or number, fixed 



88 THE HAKD TIMES. 

at the first entry of the town, should be assured 
by the reservation of certain lots and farms from 
sale for a given period, at the expiration of which 
they should be sold by auction, at their advanced 
value, and the proceeds divided. By this arrange- 
ment original settlers would receive the reward of 
their enterprise; viz., the rise of value in lands 
they had occasioned, instead of its realization by 
outside speculators. 

At the same time the loan fund should have been 
called in for division, with the proceeds of all 
property, animals, tools, etc., belonging to the 
colonists. 

The supervision of the board and its assistance 
should then terminate ; all its pecuniary relations 
ending with the incorporation of the town on its 
established success. 

As the lateness of the season will prevent any 
movement of colonists, except to tropical lati- 
tudes, before April, it may be sympathetically in- 
quired, "What can be done immediately for the 
idle?" Preparations for efficient colonization at 
several points in the spring can be commenced at 
once by organization and the selection of lands. 

Many might be employed during the approach- 
ing winter in Florida, through private enterprise, 
which can rapidly execute a project. A party in- 
terested in the topic of these papers has suggested, 
as a probable well-paying scheme, the purchase of 
a large tract in Florida at once, say at $1 per acre ; 



THE HARD TIMES. 89 

the deportation thence of honest and efficient labor 
from the North, at small rates of payment in cash, 
with balance in land, by which it would be settled 
upon the territory, and the immediate planting of 
potatoes upon a large scale, to be marketed in New 
York as early in 1878 as the usual shipments from 
Bermuda. The advance upon the remainder of 
the land resulting from adjacent settlement of 
laboring population, and its cultivation, would 
soon, in his judgment, yield large returns upon the 
investment. Certainly there would seem to be not 
much chance of loss if the affair was under efficient 
superintendence. This is a suggestion without an 
opinion of its feasibility, but reliable information 
concerning it can be readily obtained. 

These suggestions are commended to the judg- 
ment of all who would aid or have interest in the 
unemployed, whose labor is their only means of 
subsistence. While savings banks gather and in- 
vest fragments of capital, a saving board may unite 
scattered forces of labor and transfer them to fields 
waiting for their steady activity.* 

The subject of a redistribution of labor has 

* The loss in assets of the 180 savings banks of Massachusetts in the 
year 1876 was $2,343,353. Allowing (it is believed to be an underesti- 
mate) that in Boston there are 5,000 men and 2,500 women and youth 
idle, beyond a normal proportion, at $1.50 and $1 each per diem, re- 
spectively, the employment of the idle in Boston alone would make good 
the deficit in the savings of the State. The Boston Five Cents Savings 
Bank had 51,778 depositors— the largest number in the State of one bank. 
What precious value had their petty savings to their owners ! Frag- 
ments of idle time are equally valuable to the same classes. 



90 THE HAKD TIMES. 

hitherto been treated only with reference to those 
of small means or income, and those who have 
nothing of either ; but the fact of a surplus of num- 
bers in trade and manufacture challenges the suc- 
cess, more than ever before, of those who have 
both ability and capital to enter the competition. 
It invites, therefore, the favored classes to con- 
sider the expediency of their choice of agricultural 
pursuits. 

What hope for the young man who now has 
$25,000, or who may inherit that sum at his ma- 
jority, for the retention of his capital with interest 
at the end of twenty years, if he embarks with it in 
business? Most likely, by the chances of ninety- 
seven to one hundred, it will then belong, or ought 
to belong, to his creditors. 

In 1840, General H. A. S. Dearborn, collector 
of the port of Boston, in an address before mem- 
bers of the Legislature, said, — 

" After an extensive acquaintance with business men, and 
having long been an attentive observer of the course of events 
in the mercantile community, lam satisfied that among one 

HUNDRED MERCHANTS AND TRADERS, NOT MORE THAN THREE 
IN THIS CITY EVER ACQUIRE INDEPENDENCE. It ivas With 

great distrust that I came to this conclusion ; but, after con- 
suiting with an experienced merchant, he fully admitted its 
truths m 

The statement startled and quite appalled the pub- 
lic interest, but was soon confirmed by a review of 
Long Wharf from 1800 to 1840. Only five in one 



THE HAED TIMES. 91 

hundred of merchants thereon had not failed or 
died destitute of property. Directors of the two 
banks in Boston in 1798, the Massachusetts and 
the Union, conferred, and found that of one thou- 
sand accounts opened during forty years, only six 
had not failed or died destitute of property. The 
inquiry went onward and reported " that not more 
than one per cent, of the best class of merchants 
succeed without failing in Philadelphia, and not 
more than two per cent, of the merchants of New 
York ultimately retire on an independence, after 
having submitted to the usual ordeal of failure. 
These calculations, it must be observed, are based 
upon periods of twenty-five and thirty years.* 

In England, the peace and luxury of rural pur- 
suits are the goal of ambition with merchants and 
bankers, .delving for the means with which to re- 
treat from the turmoil of London. To-day many 
of our fellow-citizens, too far past the meridian of 
their powers to hope for recovery of lost estates, 
deplore that they had not, in their prime, acted 
upon, as now they accept, the philosophy of Lord 
Bacon, — 

" Hearken also to Solomon, and beware of hasty gathering 
of riches. The poets feign that when Plutus (which is 
Riches) is sent from Jupiter, he goes slowly ; but when sent 
from Pluto (taking him for the Devil), they come up on 
speed. . . . The improvement of the ground is the most 
natural obtaining of riches, for it is our great mother's 

* For farther impressive details see Freedley's Treatise on Business. 



92 THE HAED TIMES. 

blessing, the earth's ; but it is slow. And yet, where men of 
great wealth stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches ex- 
ceedingly." 

Of course, this investment of capital by the rich 
must be with shrewdness for profit ; not with indif- 
ference for entertainment. 

" Men who have acquired their training in other pursuits 
frequently succeed best at farming, and show results that old 
farmers do not obtain in a lifetime. It is to be ascribed to 
two causes. They turn to farming because they have a love 
for it, and prosecute it with zeal ; secondly, their superior 
business tact acquired in other pursuits, gives them an 
advantage." — Freedley. 

Mind, Capital and Labor, growers and graziers, 
are now a partnership to which all other industrial 
interests are attendant and subsidiary. With a 
liberality as broad as their domain, they seek no 
monopoly of their -craft. They breed Jerseys and 
Southdowns, not Molly Maguires. From the hil- 
locks of their fields they beckon to him who stands 
"idle in the market-place," saying, "No man hath 
hired me," — to "Come over and help us." They 
would call all who would work rather than want to 
" Come ! Come with us to draw plenty from earth, 
sun and air, and revel in the harvest." They are 
the great American syndicate, funding United 
States bonds at four per cent. , while they earn to 
pay, not trade, the national debt. 

They toil as freemen to pay for the liberty of 



THE HAED TIMES. 93 

those who have toiled for them as bondmen, bring- 
ing an annual offering of corn and wine and oil, 
and the first fleece of their sheep. It must be 
an acceptable offering to Him who appoints that 
"the vine shall give her fruit, and the heavens 
shall give their dew." 

Let the people obey His law, and they shall reap 
in fruition His promise : " Blessed shall be the fruit 
of thy ground, the fruit of thy cattle, the increase 
of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep." " Blessed 
shall be thy basket and thy store." 



94 THE HARD TIMES, 



NOTE. 

The electrotypes of buildings used in illustra- 
tion, have been kindly loaned by Mr. Alfred Gray, 
Secretary of the Kansas State Board of Agricult- 
ure ; and Mr. S. R. Fowler, Chairman of Vineland 
Township Committee. The line exhibit of popula- 
tion, farm lands and crops, is a reduction from 
elaborate tables in the admirable Centennial Eeport 
of Mr. Gray. 

It was the intention to append interesting com- 
munications from reliable parties, concerning the 
inducements for migration thither offered by their 
respective States ; parties who were well known to 
have no speculative interest in the subject. They 
will be held at the service of a Board, for publica- 
tion in Bulletins, as suggested. 

As the season is too late for settlements in the 
Middle or Northern States before spring, it is 
suggested that a Board proceed immediately to 
selection of the site for a large colony in Florida ; 
the climate of which will permit all operations 
throughout the winter. 

In that case the first Bulletin will refer to the 
attractions of climate and soil, and to other ad- 
vantages inviting immigration to Florida, as the 
future Italy of America. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



028 940 573 2 



